The plums tasted 
sweet to the unlettered desert-tribe girl- 
but what manners! To chew into each! She was ungainly, 
low-caste, ill mannered and dirty, 
but the god took the 
fruit she'd been sucking. 
Why? She'd knew how to love. 
She might not distinquish 
splendor from filth 
but she'd tasted the nectar of passion. 
Might not know any Veda, 
but a chariot swept her away- 
now she frolics in heaven, esctatically bound 
to her god. 
The Lord of Fallen Fools, says Mira, 
will save anyone 
who can practice rapture like that- 
I myself in a previous birth 
was a cowherding girl 
at Gokul.