Candaka (290? – 365? CE) was an Indian Vaishnavite poet, but there is no information about his personal life.
Krishna went out to play
Mother
and he ate dirt
Is that true Krishna
No
who said it
Your brother Balarama
Not true
Look at my face
Open your mouth
he opened it
and she stood speechless
inside was
the universe
may he protect you
Translation W. S. Merwin & J. Moussaieff Mason
This is delightful, with the absence of punctuation, which had me looping through it multiple times to get the voices right and so forth. It felt like I was more of a participant than a spectator, I’m eager to sit with it longer to hear all that it is whispering…
Yes, the simplicity of the words and the presentation somehow helps to put us in the humble, rural village where the young cow-herd mother had to be sure her toddler wasn’t eating dirt.