dashed on the rocks

People say, “you will have to bear it.” 

     Don’t they know what passion is like, 

     or is it that they are so strong? 

 

As for me, if I don’t see my lover 

     grief goes down my heart, 

     and like a streak of foam in high waters 

     dashed on the rocks 

     little by little I ebb 

     and become nothing. 

 

[Kalporu Cirunuraiyar (c.100 BCE), 'What She Said' Kuṟ 290, from The Interior Landscape: Classical Tamil Love Poems, trans. from the Tamil by A.K. Ramanujan]