Ghazals

My God, give me a way of my own to drink from, for I am weary of all the creeds. I don't know what these children are reciting in their schools. The hardships of the road exist for the ease of arrival. If you are the destination, then why are the creeds so many and so different? From far off, the mirage looks like water to thirsty people. You, sun-faced one, show your face, so the stars dissolve in your light. I can't make sense of the jurists, and the philosophers talk nonsense. Come and draw the curtain aside, so the truth of things is revealed. If you are not the aim of all knowledge, what a waste of all that learning. If you are not the meaning behind every word, then pity all our lips. The pearl of the sea of wonder is better left unpierced. Come, you clever ones, let us shatter every drill. Reason's planning accomplishes nothing here; pain is what is needed. No lamp burns through these nights like the brand seared on the heart. Since I am free of learning, what's it to me, Illuminationist or Peripatetic? Since I have fallen into madness, what are creeds to me, or ways of drinking? In separation from him, each limb of mine burns with its own fire. No one's remedy can soothe me; oh, the cry that rises from these fevers! In his name, people are given wings even while caught in the snare of the self. In remembering him, the body becomes a phoenix in its own nest. Tonight the Bountiful One is lifting the trace of grief from my pillow into his lap. I don't know who is prompting me, teaching me the chant of 'O Lord, O Lord.'

When I made the Prophet of the ascension my intercessor, I lifted my needy heart to a state of contentment and self-sufficiency. I am the disciple of an old master whose humility built step upon step, raising even the ascension itself higher. The dust of poverty is my throne, the brand of love my crown; it costs me nothing to kick aside an actual throne and crown. Since I gambled on love and let go of all but the Beloved, let me be a heretic if I ever counted the winning card. Though I seem far off, set at the tip of your arrow, your strong drawing hand has made me the master of the target. When your kind ear pretends not to need us, the enemy wails; you take your toll from our lament with sweet, careless grace. You have never seen a night, for wherever you are it is nothing but day, so you cannot know the state of our pitch black nights. Since, like the Generous One, I have lived on a handful of the dust of contentment, I have satisfied the needs of a hundred beggars as poor as myself.

I have not idly girded myself against the spite of fate; I have made the Lord of the Dhulfiqar my ally and helper. What harm can fear of autumn do to the garden of my hope, when it is I who water its spring with burning tears? I cling to the hope of bowing my face at a threshold that forever lines the eye of expectation with the kohl of promises. I press my heart's wound against my chest. How long, in the grief of love, must I crush the longing for tulip fields against my heart's desire? The seed of my longing will not rise from the soil of sorrow. How many times must I send my weeping eyes to plead for me? What use is the lovely lament tearing through my breath, when I have already handed the reins of my will into love's hand? However long, like Fayyaz, my eyes pour out their rows of tears, weeping cannot carry the dust of grief out of my heart.

Our longing heart has brimmed over with complaint. Where is the edge of a robe we might cling to for help? It was not right to torment us any further; we are already pale and broken, so what good is our defeat to anyone? We raise our hands to heaven in prayer for you; what more could come from our hands besides prayer? There is still hope that we may find all we lack, now that our very being has worn itself down to nothing. Tonight, when no listening ear lay in wait for a moan, our faint songs rang out as loud cries of grief. We won a victory over ourselves, nothing more; the only arrow that ever flew true from our bow struck us. Our beginning comes only after the end of time itself; the night of resurrection is our first dawn of creation. Clever one, show off your skill no further; our drunken, careless heart will take in no learning. Generous one, stop mocking our wretchedness; for us, sitting in the dust of humiliation has been an honor.

Love has come and set fire to all of us, the good and the bad alike. O masters of blame, lend me the shelter of your robe. We are the fresh rosebush of love, and nothing fills our basket but the nightingale's lament for the rose of our face. We are the ones whose reason is undone, for every day madness comes to circle our wits like a pilgrim. We are that lucky star, and nothing is worthy to watch us but the highest pinnacle of heaven's throne. Where annihilation sells its rank for a price, our humble felt mat lies above the nine silken skies. We are that proud, intoxicated one whose every moment lands a slap of refusal across the cheek of the heavens. We are that lover of pain who, on the field of fate, envies nothing but a wounded heart. In the eight green gardens of paradise there is not one cypress as graceful as the box tree of our stature. Though in cruelty a hundred of him is not equal to one, in love and faithfulness one of us is worth a hundred. At the table of love's sorrow for you we are honored guests, and every moment a fresh grief is betrothed to us. The giver of sorrow does not come from straying in the desert of madness; on this road the print of our own steps is our guide.

My grief-nourished body turned to dust on the road to him, and my dust now puts on airs before the eyes of the heavens. We have made our loved ones content with our death; in the end, our pain became the cure for a whole world's pain. A reckless beloved, faithless friends, a wretched fate, so you were just waiting for your chance, our cowardly enemy? Everyone we meet is consumed with envy of our longing; our cold sigh keeps a whole world warm while you are gone. In the court of love, no one's worth stays hidden; our pale yellow face will make us glow with honor at last. We walked to the village of nonexistence, our skirt full of the heart's torn shreds; this is all we brought back from the garden of existence. How could our handful of dust draw the scorn of angels, when a horseman like love rode out of our dust? We wear the armor of humility and wield the sword of need; if the sky is a man, let it withstand the assault of our battle. Let a whole world draw its blade; we have thrown down our shield, for in this arena there is no man left but us. Not one night did our bed of grief-spreading turmoil let the side of comfort rest beside us. It cost us nothing, generous one, if we gambled away faith and heart; in our game of dice, losing is the very name of winning.

Our planning is mortgaged to our aging reason; who knows how far the arrow of our strength will fly. Logic opens no door to truth through knowledge; the pen of our scribe marks down only errors. In the kingdom of the heart the demons' tyranny has gone too far; our minister, our reason, governs us badly. Since the heart's hand has clutched the tresses of the beautiful, that same grip will be what saves us on the Day of Reckoning. Fayyaz, don't grieve, for moment by moment it reaches the ear: the glad tidings from the ruby lips of our herald.

You said that whoever longs to see us must stay awake; our wakeful eye keeps faith with that command of yours. We have happily turned lowliness into a high station; even our own wall casts its shadow over us. Friends lay on the balm, enemies pour in crushed glass; no one knows the cure for our wounded heart. Just as a breeze coaxes a rose petal out of the garden, when will a lament draw the torn pieces of our heart from us? Every strand of my breath is caught in the cords of a lament; what more, O longing, do you want from my worn-out soul? The ascetic's piety is just a branch of our family of unbelief; his prayer beads are close kin to our pagan girdle. Though we became a byword for a soiled and sinful life, the water of mercy still flows in the stream of our repentance. We don't know what new mischief will set it preening again; today the smell of blood drifts from our door and walls. We have fallen from the summit of the sky to the threshold; O Generous One, it is not noble to torment us this much.

Nothing but the scar on the heart blooms in our spring; our tulip field drinks water from a stream of flame. Every tulip color that broke open became sunlight; no flower of our spring was ever touched by withering. In all four seasons our rosebush keeps blossoming; the flower has sworn a bond of brotherhood with our thorn. We, the pure of nature, have made our peace with the world; no mirror takes on dimness from our dust. Love laid us level with the dark earth; this was the reason for our standing in the world. Though we are thin and worn, day and night the turning sky rides full speed, hunting us down. Fayyaz, your style of speech was always fresh, yet in our age this fresh style has grown fresher still.

The brand of madness has found a place on my head once more; my star has cast its shadow over me again. We who are burned by fate know nothing of feasting and joy; when any festival comes to our country, it turns to mourning. Even after we perish, we who are burned lose no worth: the mirror brightens its eye from our ashes. Our days are dark, yet when love casts its ray, our garment becomes a robe of honor on our body, like a lamp. On the bed of comfort we find no rest; like a precious blade's gem, only a sword's edge can be our resting place. Even the shadow of the Huma's wing would weigh like a hair upon us, if the brand of your love already shadows our head. The yellow pallor of our face is worth no more than a straw, unless love's slap stamps its mark on us like coin upon gold. It is not from riches that we look down on the heavens; the satin sky itself feels too tight against our body. When our morning rises from the horizon of the glass, our wine cup makes the sun's splendor pale in our sight. We are rakish, drunk, our skirts soaked with wine; and you, lavish ascetic, we have no mind like yours, so leave us alone.

You who are hidden from my sight, you are the one drunk on your own beauty; let all my life of need be sacrificed to your sweet pride. Jacob, with his eyes shut tight, complained of separation; now look what this open eye of mine endures. What pain, that the days of my life have run out, and still this long, endless sorrow of mine will not end. Not a single particle of it reaches your heart: this soul-shattering, heart-melting cry of mine. Though you are the loveliest in the world and need no one, my love, no one but you can bear my fond demands. I have no tongue to protest the cruelty of separation; my self-sufficient one already knows how needy I am. My tongue is different, my way of telling is different; O Fayyaz, no one ever comes to know my secret.

My breath is too cramped to fill my long, aching chest. So come, my cry, and send up smoke from this cage of mine. Whose hope still follows after this caravan, when the throat of our bell is scratched raw from wailing? Your blade flashed over me like lightning, what grief, for this flame would not fit in my body of straw. Even if my longing breaks its fast in paradise, it will still be left starved of the bounty of seeing you. Weak as we are, with love to help us, our fly outshines even the Simorgh. My life is yours, on one condition: that in my dying breath my gaze stays turned on your face. Fayyaz, who in this caravan now stirs the senses, so tonight our bell sings out drunk with joy?

The heavens don't strive in vain to destroy me; even the sun gathers dust from my pure clay. Sword of my beloved, the lover's longing writhes in blood: your hem is clutched by the hand of my dying hope. I sit here waiting for the uproar of resurrection; at least, as a test, pass once over my dust. The spring of my nature never knew an autumn; it was sheer drunkenness that laid the vine's leaves down. Beside the sobbing of my weeping sits, as its equal, the laughter rising from my torn and shredded heart. I've pinned the age's heartlessness upon myself, and still my laughing breath weeps tears of blood. As long as I've lived I've been a reckless rogue, ready to risk all; like Fayyaz, I have feared no one.

Memories of you fill the corners of my eye and heart; every room of my being has become a camp for your image. My heart is tighter than the knot of your curls; your sharp nail never untied my tangle. Through clinging to the body, I am at the mercy of fate; my soul lies like a slaughtered thing, writhing in the blood of the flesh. Do not stop searching just because I keep to my corner; my shore was raised by the hands of whirlpools. The rawness of knowledge still holds him in its fire; our wise man never understood madness through reason. A sweet tongue leads you astray, alas; still, I wish you never learned what is in my heart. Desire cannot reach the place where I now stand; thought has not been allowed into my dwelling. It is no fault of his that he feels free of me; in his heedlessness he has not even thought of himself. I have heard my killer still thinks of paying my blood price; he has not yet rubbed the sleep from his eyes. I watered my own crop from the stream of patience and calm; but when will Khizr's long life ever ripen as my harvest? Beyond stealing his own heart away with a single flirtatious glance, you and God: tell me, what other crime did my heartless love commit? Though on his path all thought is futile, my futile thoughts still travel the true road. Except the friend whose love has rooted itself in my soul, I tore out everything else that had sprouted from the clay of my being. No one steals a taste of life from my bitterness; my deadly poison carries sugar as a gift to Egypt. The one who always bit his lip with a sweet smile, how used he has grown to the insistence of my begging. The world has filled with my scattered, raving talk; my chains are enough for every maddened heart. Now that our Mirza Saeed is alone, how well it turned out that Fayyaz left my heart.

Our heart is a mirror for every tulip cheeked beauty; it moves from door to door, lit by the glow of the beloved. What a strange marvel: a single hue made of a hundred clashing colors. Wherever an idol of beauty stands, our heart holds up the mirror. Always hoping that you might be the one lying in wait, our heart becomes the prey wherever a snare is set. If love did not exist, who would nurture beauty? Wherever you are, our heart is a garden in full spring. The moment we lifted our lashes in the dust of misfortune, our heart was a mirror buried under that dust. You rose from sleep, a vision of pure radiance; in the season of your face, our heart holds up the mirror. If there is no room for grief and pain in this house, then, Fayyaz, what good is our heart for anything?

If we get drunk on the ruby lips of beautiful idols, in that drunkenness we hide the wine itself. The whimper of those who seal their lips out of fear is more disgraceful; don't silence us, for we cry out loud. The childlike tear on my lashes does the crying out, otherwise we would hold our tongue from complaint. A single tender glance has plundered us completely; whatever profit we make, we turn into loss. Every moment, lost in a wave of moaning, in our searching we send sorrowful letters to our beloved. We have never strayed from humility and self-abasement; whatever we have done, we keep on doing the same. Fayyaz, we die from the cruelty of our friend; in the end, we make our own faithfulness plain to see.

Fire drips like water from the way we speak; you would think the tongue in our mouth is a flame. In the land of love, the reflection of that face turned the promise of our spring into autumn's color. Tonight, as we spoke of your face, no companion burned for us more tenderly than the candle. Like the broken pen of clumsy writers describing those curls, not one true word comes out of our mouth. No one ever finds us through our frailty; when you want a sign of us, ask the moaning instead.

The blade of your graceful brow thirsts for our blood; the lovely line of your face is the headline of our lesson in madness. Our star was never this dark before; your hair cast its shadow over our wretched fate. Your mischief-making eyes are not flushed from wine; the hem of their coy beauty is stained with our blood. We are honest and single-hearted with everyone, like a mirror: whatever lies inside us, it shows on the outside. Fayyaz, how can I give thanks for this black fortune? In the end it led me straight to the curls of beautiful idols.

A child practices teasing, aiming straight for my life; the cupbearer of our age keeps his wine still sour in the unripe grape. I bow to the playfulness of your beauty: in parting and in union your radiance never breaks away from my bewildered eyes. Though we swallow our own blood, we are safe from fate's wheel; our love has become both the disaster and the charm that turns it away. Better to make a happy home somewhere beyond the sky, for the flood of annihilation has surged into our hall. What would we do with our heavy hearts in this temple of being, if nonexistence had not been let into our foundation? Years have passed since we opened the vein of desire, and still the blood of rotten longings boils out of our arteries. We have put on the robe of our existence inside out: its outer face is our true meaning, its lining the mere title. We are the Joseph of Canaan in wisdom, and the wicked self is Zulaikha; the world is our pit, and the people of this age are our brothers. No one will get a turn to be questioned if our Judge settles our account on the Day of Resurrection. With all the shame our sins have brought upon us, our disobedience would not even regard the piety of the ascetic. Our covenant takes no crack from all this faithlessness; our pledge is made of the same clay as our faith. Strange that we still keep eyes hopeful toward love, and yet our raw, unfinished burning has not stained our faith with the color of unbelief. We are drowned in disobedience, and stranger still: out of grace our sovereign carries out that very command of ours. There is a dark line written on the scripture of the idols' faces, a verse foretelling our own dark fortune. Where are we, and where the luck to catch the prey of the heart's desire? To rival the heavens! How could that ever befit our station? How long, generous Lord, this cruelty and tyranny of separation? Tell our king it is better to be kind to his subjects.

No heart but ours can welcome grief; no mirror but ours reflects the darkness. The brand of madness will never quit my head, not until the grief of loving you is satisfied with my chest. For the sorrow of having spent one single night with you until dawn, my grudge against fate will never leave my heart. Union is good when it matches the size of my longing; what can a single glance do for my ancient, aching desire? Thanks to the fortune of love, every day of my week was a working Saturday; in my Friday there is no holiday from the lesson. The heavens are settling accounts, deeply afraid of me; my woolen cloak of poverty would make the world too small for them. Even if eternal union were betrothed to me, Fayyaz, it could never make up for, never erase, my grief of last night.

Sorrow from being apart from you has become my whole way of being; without you my veins and roots are like a buried ruby waiting in the dark. Unless a glowing face appears before my eyes, the blood of meaning will never boil up in my thoughts. No amount of digging can move us from our place; we are a vein of ruby whose roots run deep in the stone. Follow me and step bravely into the ranks of love; our thicket can turn even the fox of your fear into a lion. For all my simple heart, when grief was handed to me like a trust, my glass would not betray it: it never lets the color of my face show the secret. No vein of ruby can be found in this generous mine; even the pickaxe turns red only from the blood of my own head.

The axe of our thought makes no dent in our grief. I wish that axe would just fall on our own head instead. Our palm tree, it seems, will never bear the fruit of progress, as if our roots and veins have sunk into solid steel. No wonder the moon shattered apart like torn linen, when the flash of our axe blade claims to rival its light. My heart will never agree to come together with yours. I fear, my friend, that our glass will smash against your stone. You are not a man to carry our slight burden, Fayyaz; your lion would only claw at the rock in our thicket.

You said the one who longs to see me must stay awake and alert; our wakeful eyes keep faith with those words of yours.

The careless indifference of my reckless beloved has destroyed me, and yet, on top of this, the beloved demands a blood-price from our very dwelling. We are the herald of silence, a child raised on a tongue not yet loosened; still, our inner clamor strikes hard against the ear of indifference.

Union itself became the cause of our parting; the very closeness we shared turned into our enemy. Even our dust never reached the hem of anyone; how far-reaching our failure turned out to be. In the meadow our wings were bound even tighter; the trap laughed at the thought of our freedom. We have become the very nature of brokenness; how costly the balm to mend us would be. Since no one bought us at any price, how plainly our true worth has been revealed. We have turned our friend into our enemy; our alchemy lost badly in the bargain. It is hard work to become a barrier to the heart; our failures came to us for nothing. We who only hope to lose ourselves, when would even Khizr bother to guide us! Sorrow showered us gently with its need; there was a freshness in how we stole hearts. Whatever we had, we have gambled away; our poverty was the capital we built upon. Our union did not gladden the generous heart; perhaps our parting will bring it joy instead.