In Praise of a Noble House

You, earth, are the very sky of Saturn; your threshold is the prayer-direction of every hope. You are the lofty roof, the ever-inhabited house; beside you all else is worthless and neglected. The mirrors of the heavens are polished bright by the mere reflection of your walls. Your carved vaulting holds the moon and sun tucked under its arm like two small tiles. The pilgrim's hand and the ring of your door cling to each other like a ball to a mallet. Before your sun-emblems the moon and the sun are like counterfeit coins beside true alchemy. The howling storm of Judgment Day cannot bring the least crack to your walls. If, to adorn the world of dust, life descended to earth from Saturn's sphere, then to grace the world of the divine, this building rose up in place of the heavens. A Kaaba built by Ishmael's hands, through which the faith itself was raised to high standing. In this world of coming and passing, fortune and good luck arrive by no other gate. When the wheel of heaven took up its doorkeeping, it said: seek no better house of good works than this. When the world's chief granted audience within it, the sky declared: to blessed places belong all fortunes. He is the support of the nation, the pillar of the faith, whose generosity a revealed verse describes. From his rank the planet Saturn draws its worth; his glory has become a proverb through the ages. The honor of excellence comes from his threshold, just as the sun draws its from the sign of Aries. Lord, grant him years of life so many that the reckoning of numbers falls short of counting them. When the tip of his pen began to scratch and write, all the knots of hope were untied at once.