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Picture the bower first. Deep in the woods Śrī Rādhā has made a place ready with Her own hands, a fragrant hidden room of leaves and blossom, and there She waits for Śyāma to come to Her. The tradition gives this waiting a name: She is the vāsaka-sajjikā, the lover who has dressed and decked the meeting place and now stands listening for Her beloved's step. Rūpa Gosvāmī sets her among the heroines in the Ujjvala-Nīlamaṇi, in the Nāyikā-bheda, that this is the one who has prepared everything and waits. And the maidservant who is granted this scene knows how the moment came to her: in the verse before, Śrīpāda bowed low, calling himself unfit to look upon Śrī Rādhā at all, content to drink the sweetness of Vraja even across millions of births. By Her grace those millions of births are crossed in a single second, for She herself appears at once, and the kiṅkarī finds the bower shining before her eyes.

Now watch what She does inside the waiting. The fire of separation is rising in Her, and to keep that fire burning low so it will not consume Her before He arrives, She sings His name aloud. "Śyāma! Śyāma!" O Rādhe, how You hold the gap with two small syllables. For these are no ordinary worldly sounds. They are Kṛṣṇa Himself come down in His most merciful, most delicious descent, the akhila-rasāmṛta-mūrti, the very body of all nectarean flavours, poured into a shape the tongue can carry. So when She says the name She is not remembering someone far off; She is already touching Him.

The tradition is careful here. This nectar does not open to every mouth. A tongue and mind soiled by offense cannot taste the sweetness of these names, cannot grow love for Kṛṣṇa from them; but the chanter who keeps clear of offense is gradually washed free of every anartha, every old crooked habit, until the full nectar inside the names rises to him on its own. And even the descent of love himself, Śrīman Mahāprabhu, who knew every glory of the name, still sat before Haridāsa Ṭhākura's straw hut on the Puri shore and asked after it, and was wholly enchanted when Śrī Rūpa Gosvāmī sang the line from his Vidagdha-Mādhava: tuṇḍe tāṇḍavinī, that the two syllables Kṛṣ-ṇa hold a nectar past knowing. When that name dances on the tongue we long for a thousand tongues; when it falls into the ears we crave billions of ears; when it steps into the courtyard of the heart it conquers every sense at once. Yadunandana Ṭhākura took that wonder into Bengali song and let it spill on: the tongue dances without rest and the heart cannot stay still and begs for many mouths; the ears swell with joy and ask for thousands more; the eyes, seeing only the two written syllables, ache for millions of eyes to behold Kṛṣṇa's own form, for the name and the body of the Lord are not two things; and when the name enters the heart it widens the whole of one's awareness, intoxicates the senses with prema, and raises up every bhāva, since all sweetness, all rasa, lives inside the name of Kṛṣṇa.

And here is why this small act looks so vast on Her lips. The more love a devotee carries, the more of that nectar he can drink; and Rādhā's love is the greatest love that is, so the sweetness She tastes in "Śyāma" runs past all measure. Dvija Caṇḍīdāsa sang Her first dawning of love, Her pūrva-rāga, in Her own voice: O friend, who sang the name of Śyāma? Through My ears it pierced straight into My heart and set My very life trembling. I cannot tell how much honey is in that name; My mouth will not let it go; saying it and saying it I am overpowered; how could I ever forget Him?

So watch Her now, O Rādhe, in the bower. Sometimes the name is a soft japa under Her breath; sometimes it breaks out into open kīrtana in a voice that grows sweeter than sweet with each turn, madhura-madhurottaram, while big pearl-like drops slip down from Her eyes. Her whole mind is fixed on His arrival. And the wind moves the dry leaves in the trees, and at that small rustle Her heart leaps, for she is sure it is the sound of Kṛṣṇa's footfall. O wind, see what You have done: at the thought that He is here Her hairs rise all over Her body in joy and astonishment, and at every step, pratipadi, the flurry of His almost-coming makes Her a fresh wonder. The maidservant, standing near, drinks the whole sight of this anxiously waiting vāsaka-sajjikā, Śrī Rādhā adorned with all the trembling transformations of ecstatic love. May that Rādhā, lost in this storm of prema, guard us.