English
Poem 20: Describing the Loom and the Board in His House
Look at this shape: you'd think it was some intricate marvel, or the branches of the Lote tree joined to the tree of paradise.
Or the fenced enclosure of the garden of reason and knowledge, or the planks shaped under the adze of Noah the messenger.
Or the shields of the Daylamites raised in battle, or a model of the turning sphere of heaven itself.
Its cut is like the patchwork robe of the first saints; its arrangement is one of the strange shapes of a rampart.
In that blessed spot stands the tree of intimacy, marked out and reserved for the holy presence alone.
Since reason has compared this shape to the sky, the rectangular form is now judged the noblest of all.
Like a hermit it stands apart from the crowd on the edge; because of this, its place is paradise and its reward comes early.
Its leaning back against the wall in the corner of the room comes from dry piety, not from laziness or ease of livelihood.
It resembles the mangy, pockmarked sky, for its surface is studded with fixed stars.
Like a mirror its whole body is face upon face, so knotted, like the curls of the beautiful, in endless chains.
From head to foot it bristles so with barbs it is no plain cloth; and if it is cloth, it is velvet.
You who are sweet as sugarcane and full of joints and form, ranked above all the souls of the plant world.
Your essence is a collection of different arrangements, in which all the geometric shapes are laid out in detail.
The imaginings of the shrewd fall short of grasping your nature; even Mani's tablet is helpless before your patterns.
The parts of your being locked hands together so tightly you'd say it was a ball and hook on the robe of purity.
For every gap and split that was there at first has now been turned to union and harmony.
You are a carpenter of faith, firm in principles; yet in this respect your nature leans toward withdrawal.
Your composition is the fine family tree of a noble root; from it is explained whatever this chapter leaves brief.
Though your face is scarred and pitted with pox, your outline is balanced by the proportion of its parts.
You are shelter for the back and a lamp for the eye; no wonder if you win the fullest share of good things.
If your heart is bound to carved and inlaid patterns, fitting, since a vegetal nature is set in charge of you.
You had one hand and a hundred thousand designs at first, and this last hand of yours is not that first hand.
The wind finds no way into the joints of your bones, nor water into the channels of your sweat.
Your fractions came out correct at the moment of multiplication, for your breaking and mending balance each other.
Your form is a tablet, and across its pages are tithes and verses, fifths and grids all at once.
From your joining the foundations of the rules are laid; from your grace the robe of building is trimmed with a hem.
The foot of the eye stays trapped in the frame of your shape, as long as the fine details of your uprights confuse it.
Designs carved on your chest like a rogue's tattoos; your arm scarred and battered like a wrestler's arm.
The blows of mallets do not shift your body from its place; you'd call it courage, though it comes from a sluggish nature.
Or, like hypocrites full of knots and twists, the propped-up wood serves as your dwelling.
To guard the house your body became all eyes, though your form is like an eye that dozes off.
You have a lean, dry side, yet by the blessing of your shade the whole world's flanks grow fat.
In you are a thousand cracks and more, and through these cracks the eye finds entry into the garden of paradise.
Out of envy of you the aloe wood sits on the fire; striking its head on the stone in grief for you is the work of sandalwood.
Since your frame took on the shape of a bee's hive, the palate and mouth of reason grow ever sweeter with honey.
You have made yourself a pillow for the People of the Bench; and this rank of yours comes from reaching a great old age.
Your face is adorned and your stature groomed; from this your capital of acceptance is made complete.
Your composition, from fine craftsmanship, is like my solid verse: light in meter yet heavy in meaning.
As long as the amulet on your arm was Azud al-Din Hasan, your praise is the writing on the pages of these seven idols.
A sun of high rank, on whose scale of ambition the seven climes weigh no more than a grain of mustard.
Like the diving depth of thought, his knowledge has no end; like the overflow of reason, his giving never stops.
The tip of his pen is the gauge for the scale of reason; his capable hand is the whetstone for the sword of generosity.
By his knowledge the subtle particulars are proven; by his fury the universal rules are shaken.
As long as his generosity tends to people's hopes, all sides of wealth are utterly neglected.
It is fitting that in the roll of his praises should be set every superlative that belongs to the highest degree.
You lordly one, before whom the swift-turning sky is weighed down, like the earth, by the burden of your bounties.
Like the garden of Iram, your palace has become a house of pillars; that is why in its comfort it rivals adorned paradise.
I have carved out a poem from my nature, where the least shaving of its wit outshines the verse of A'sha and Akhtal.
If anyone says, or has ever said, the like of this, then let my wealth be forbidden and my blood made lawful to shed.
Do not let fate trample beneath the feet of every base wretch the one to whom the whole realm of meaning has bowed.
Bear the grief of this servant, for in all the world, after God, I rely on your generosity alone.
To the taste of reason, any speech that is your praise is sweet as life, however long it runs.
Enjoy your wealth and rank, for in the court of destiny the writ of your life is sealed to run long.