jaami_vapid

The Vapid Eyes

The dark wheel of each night and blazing stars [1]
Like the whirling plumes of mine fire and It the sparks
Weeping with droplets of blood my emaciated body
Like the thin thread stringing rare precious jewels along .
Glimpsed upon your face unnumbered many stares [2]
And nothing ventured from those gazes
Except mine runny vapid eyes .
In the gardens of elegance and grace
Your sublime beauty unparalleled
Like the flowers blown away
By the redolent fragrance of moist musk. [3]
Much desperation
Even the one deserving to join in reunion [4]
Upon this separation pines
Unclasping the hands of desire
Clutched at the gown of hope futile.
Bemoan to the cradle of Beloved’s abetment [5]
You never know once afflicted by Its sorrow
Your back may rest upon the prickly thorns
Or nights sleepless upon the sharp jagged stones.
Jaami from the jewels of Your attributes crafted [6]
Words into earrings piercing the ears of listeners.

End.

The ignorant call their eyes vapid. Not vapid?! Drunken! Emaciated Haitian youngling succumbing to malnutrition is indeed intoxicated by the effervescence of Beloved’s fragrance as versed by the poet Jaami.

Because all have forsaken him, there is no wealth, no health, no food, no home, no love no hope and when there is seemingly nothing left, in this false-vacuum lives the most exotic being the Beloved Creator. Yes! Indeed by the process of elimination our starving brother is in close proximity of the hidden object of every quest and Beloved of every passion, the Sultan of Love the Almighty sustainer of all multi-verse(s).

Do you want to be the prestigious guest of honor in the presence of Its Royal Highness? Find The Majesty by this lowly Haitian! Do you seek the presence and approval of the wealthy and affluent? Be afar away from the Gardens of Elegant Beauty where the Regal Majesty roams.

His heart broken, his body broken and all else is broken, therefore the humanity not having any other channels to flux, concentrating within his eyes, like wine cooked and aged by the afflictions and betrayals of this life.

In that precise moment, this Haitian man becomes one with the universe, becomes a singular eye like the rest of the cosmos staring infinitely upon his Beloved’s comely light.

[1] There is no description of the Creator possible in any form of language or human cognitive faculty. No machine can be designed to describe this Beloved in even a small measure. However the Mankind is given the gift of language to render in few words “experiences” that can point to by means of metaphors towards this Being. We are the night the Creator the stars i.e. remote traces of Its light reaches us to see a hint. Or we are the dark smoke and the Beloved the bright sparks…

[2] This verse could be read more than one way. Use of ‘your’ in the first verse is the life of this world. Basically the poet says, look lots of people have been looking at you (talking to this world) and all I gained was weeping eyes by these people.

[3] In ancient times the Musk was removed from certain gland of deer. If it was fresh i.e. still moist from bodily fluids of a recent hunt then the fragrance was much more odoriferous than dried hardened older extractions. So moist Musk in Farsi poetry indicates the fragrance of great value rare and precious. They used fragrance because you smell it but since the scent comes to you from all directions, the source difficult to pinpoint. Same with for the grace and beauty of Allah, it is ambient all over but no one can sense a direction to find It.

[4] The reunion is when the man dies and resurrected in afterlife to be restored to the original shape and form to exist in the presence of the Creator.

[5] The original word in Farsi is ‘Naaz’ which literary means ‘tease’ like a baby may tease with his or her cute moves and sounds or a woman teasing similarly. I felt the term tease and encouragement was too common and perhaps somewhat sexual. So used the work abetment. I am not sure.

[6] The word ‘attribute’ is the direct translation of Arabic word ‘Sifat’ which means descriptions of attributes of something. We can not see hear or touch the Creator we can only sense the attributes (Sifat) like guidance, beauty, mercy…

Background: Young Haitian man in the early stages of malnutrition. Photographed by Robert Gumpert. A recent US government study stated that over one third of all Americans are overweight. Another study from the University of Minnesota estimated that over thirty percent of all American dogs and cats are also overweight. In contrast, reporters returning from the northwestern region of Haiti tell of starving people so hungry they are forced to eat their emaciated dogs and donkeys, and school children in Port-au-Prince swallowing stones to assuage hunger pangs due to poverty.