Antidote
 
Reaching upon Your hearth, thoughts about life
                                                Indeed impossible
Comparing Your jewels to the mined garnets
                                                Indeed impossible
 
Your face’s affection cannot be hidden from heart
Hiding the sun-disk from a flower
                                                Indeed impossible
 
The pen’s tongue described You for hundred years
Portraying a single whiff of Your love’s sorrow
                                                Indeed impossible
 
My antidote is said to be from the depth Your words [0]
Sugar being the cure for asphyxiation
                                                Indeed impossible

The arrow of Your beau geste penetrated my armor
Midst the warring phalanx thoughts about life
                                                Indeed impossible
 
If you run me by Your blade, no moans, since
The Beloved’s sword inflicts wounds but complaints
                                                Indeed impossible
 
Truth is, the pine gets its height from You [1] 
Comparing Your loftiness to the pine’s height
                                                Indeed impossible
 
Khajoo:
That which came to you from the wheel of time
Except the revolving of time, all other reasons [2] 
                                                Indeed impossible
 
 

[0] Arabic word ‘La-l’ was translated into ‘garnet/jewel’, which normally is used into word “La-l Lab” or the “garnet of lips” which in Sufism means “the depth of the Beloved’s words” and I translated it verbatim. “Sugar of lips” means revelation through angels to prophets. Khajoo says hey! I am ill and what else can cure me other than the depth of the Beloved’s words, which was revealed through angels, then again he says hey! How can ‘Sugar’ or these revelations cure someone who is already dead of asphyxiation? Being a very Farsi sarcastic poet.
 
[1] Attributes of the Creator are often given, in an inferior form, to Its Creation. For example, Allah is the Most Merciful, we as humans are also merciful. But Allah’s mercy is boundless, but ours has a limit. This is the lesson this verse is teaching to the reader. Do not confuse the attributes bestowed upon the creation with the Creator.
 
[2] Health, wealth, peace, illness, poverty, war and … they rotate between the people according to the Creator’s wish. But so far as we can tell they randomly rotate between people. Some are born healthy, some not, some are wealthy some poor and etc. Khajoo says try to make more sense of this and that will be impossible.
 

© 2003-2002,  Dara Shayda