Plucking your eyebrows
By Kabir
Translated By Arvind Krishna Mehrotra
Plucking your eyebrows,
Putting on mascara,
But will that help you
To see things anew?
The one who sees
Is changed into
The one who’s seen
Only if one is
Salt and the other
Water. But you, says Kabir,
Are a dead
Lump of quartz.
Source: Poetry (March 2011)