An Ode

Morning drew its breath from your life-giving breath, and the sea learned the art of generosity from your open hand. In the season of your justice's young fortune, it is no wonder if the aged sky straightens its bent back. The marks of your arrival, by their ancient power, have drawn even blessed Jesus behind a veil. Joseph and David, Khidr and the Messiah, hold their gifts from you, just as Jamshid held his throngs and retinue from you. This radiant face and that soul-reviving song, this lasting existence and that miracle of breath. The diver of wisdom plunges, and has plunged many times, into the depths of being and the sea of nothingness alike. You are that orphan pearl: there is not, nor has there ever been, a unique jewel like you in the ancient sea. Before the cloud of your bounty, why would it withhold? You who, with your hand, have paid generosity its due. The sea begs with the shell's cupped hand; indeed, your giving has emptied the ocean's purse of pearls. The mere thought of your resolve cuts the hand of oppression shorter than the enemy's lifespan, out of the land of being. At your command, the musician Venus has, in the gathering of the heavens, forgotten her songs. The sight of your face has cast from the eyes of the houris of paradise the very garden of Eram. With your bounty I have no eye for the moon and sun of the sky, even if they offered me both their coins. Although the slanderers broke them, my king, in the era of my praise the tablet and pen remain. With what means could I walk the road of your praise, when no one should carry a fistful of straw as a gift to the garden of Eram. I have come empty-handed, for nothing befits the Lord of generosity as a gift except an empty hand. How sweet, that at your command the scribe of deeds draws his pen across my ledger, for the sake of your praise.