English
In Praise of Rukn al-Din Masud, Sent to Khwarazm
The sea of sorrow has no floor and no shore;
the affairs of this age have no order at all.
We searched the orchard of time like a pomegranate,
but not one smiling lip appears without a heart full of blood.
The bent-backed wheel of heaven, with a hundred eyes,
searches the world for ease, yet finds no trace of it.
More than a thousand arrows of cruelty are lodged in my heart,
hidden so deep that not even an arrowhead shows.
I have drowned so completely in the water of my own tears
that nothing of me remains visible but wailing and lament.
The shirt of my patience has torn so many times
that the hem is gone and no collar can be seen.
However far I go in search of my heart and my beloved,
nowhere is there any sign of either of them.
Everything in the world has an edge, a limit;
so why does separation alone have no end in sight?
I made myself content with a mere fantasy of happiness,
yet even that, from utter deprivation, does not appear.
There is so much fire in my chest, by the ton,
that no scent even rises from my burning heart.
What kind of chessboard is this, where in the chaos
you cannot tell king from pawn, or master from doorman?
How could the smallest specks find any rest in this land,
when even an anvil is not safe from the storm of disaster?
Who could strike the ball of desire in the field of grief,
when so much dust rises that the field itself cannot be seen?
They say: seek joy from the hearts of madmen.
Why then does this state not show itself in a fool like me?
I told myself I had carried my life safely out of disaster,
but the grief is so vast that even life itself no longer appears.
We sharpened our teeth, thinking the feast had arrived at last,
but where? from where? not even a single tooth remains.
Wherever I look, left and right, all are enemies,
and from among all the friends, not one is to be found.
The water of life lies in darkness, and around us
there is only darkness; the living spring is nowhere to be seen.
For a lifetime I have kept my eyes on the road, and still
not even dust from the beloved's horse's hooves appears.
I said the crescent of justice would shine from the sky of the kingdom,
but the sky itself is hidden behind endless clouds.
The world of religious law has gone dark, for within it
the light of Abu Hanifa's school no longer shines.
O leader of the age, take up the reins of resolve,
for the army is in disarray and no sultan is in sight.
O Jesus of this age, what do you have? Breathe a healing breath,
for this pain has grown chronic and no cure appears.
A dawn has risen in the east, yet still
the banners of the shining sun do not appear.
They have brought a letter of victory to this land,
but it is sealed shut, and its heading cannot be read.
The demons still rule the court of chaos.
Yes, no wonder: Solomon is nowhere to be seen.
If the people have made worshiping the calf their habit,
yes, it is fitting: there is no Moses son of Amram in sight.
O you against whose words not a single pearl
has risen from the sea, nor shown itself in any mine.
O you whose equal in the arts of eloquence
is nowhere to be found today in Iraq or Khorasan.
But why speak of this? The world-roaming imagination
searched far and wide and found nothing on this side of what is possible.
Is your pen sugarcane or a parrot? How strange:
a sweet parrot that stays unseen within its sugar-field.
Beside your lofty ambition, this low heap of dust
is no great marvel that it should count for so little.
For on the scale of the heavens, when the weighing is done,
no seed of wild rue shows up in either pan.
The sky does not bother to strike at your enemy, because
from sheer smallness he is not even visible to its eyes.
In the absence of your stirrup, from the blows of injustice,
the very foundation of Isfahan has vanished all at once.
Until you take the key of victory into your own hand,
for now no Muslim's deliverance is anywhere in sight.
The grace of your favor, which was my companion in the cave,
has for some time now left me bewildered, with no sign of it.
They say a friend appears at the prison door;
so what is a servant to do? At the prison, no friend appears.
If I am nailed to the cross by my four young children,
what has become of him, that he gives no sign of any kind?
May your fortune, sincere and clear, be revealed;
for that is your life, and its span has no end in sight.