Castling
the Queen
Your
Highness:
Your hand
holding the royal scepter, ever-expansive
Your step
turning away from the cosmos, ever-lasting [1]
“Castling
on the Queen side” Rook and King next to
Bishop[2]
Your
animosity off the stallion of endurance,
ever-dismounting
Each day,
one hundred thousand voices declaring Your Praise
From
humbled slaves, free like wild lilies, ever-sprouting
The
contagious sorrow for Your essence, likeness of a wine
[3]
Gales
swept the envious minds of Your Glory, ever-blasting
Whosever’s
life and heart desires You not [4]
Under the
hands and feet of the cosmos, ever-trampling
Once the
troubles finally subside around the world
Rescued,
cosmos next to You, ever-standing
[1] ‘Hand’ both in Arabic and Farsi
stands for power. The
phrase relates to a king i.e. the Beloved in royal attribute. Step
turning away
means to hide or be secretive, I assume though this is my best
interpretation.
Ever-lasting until the day of judgment when the Creator returns. As
indicated
in the last verse of this poem.
[2] The moves in the verse for the
chess pieces are exactly
the “Castling on the Queen side” move in modern chess verbatim. In the
next
verse the ‘Queen’ becomes clear i.e. the Creator well capable of
animosity
towards the creation chooses to castle It Self away from anger to
strike at the
world:
Hadith
Qudsi #1
[3] “Contagious sorrow” the sorrow we
all experience being
away from the Beloved the creator of the heavens and earth. The term
contagious
means spread amongst all people. And it is described as a wine drank by
those
who feel the presence of the Beloved’s essence. Gales blow away the
minds of
those rulers and politicians who compete with the glory of Allah.
[4] From my personal experience any
time my life and heart
was not yearning for Beloved I was reminded by some raucous in my life.
Look
back carefully in your life, you will sense the troubles came when your
love
went away.
© 2003-2002,
Dara Shayda
