Lost I am in that valley
So seek me not!
IT killed me, alive I am anew [1]
So mourn me not!
A lifetime of being lost, never coming back
Because of being always this way
So track me not!
Died at ITs gates and that dust on my corps
Glittering with pearls of that dust [2]
So wash me not!
In love, drunken and Self’s scandal my lust
Doing all whatsoever I desire [3]
So blame me not!
I am that regal flower blooming upon my heart’s blood
My redolent scent breaks the hearts [4]
So smell me not!
End.
Dara:
My beloved son:
When looking upon the frown of your lofty forehead, agonized child-less father I begat my Self. The vastness of the pain, a tempest beyond my endurance, thus gulping the wine of the Beloved to drown the whale of your loss:
When Your wine overflows
Every crater
Every valley
Every goblet
Destiny’s wildebeest wearing my face for hoofs
Maddened by the effervescence of Your love
Found no un-stumped savannah in my heart
To crush for one last hurried stampede
I was told my brave son not once complained, not once asked for help, and not once burdened any soul for anything. The Angels nesting in your sable shoulders never scribed my kind fatherly Farsi-tainted words to sooth you, never wrote the caress of my trembling Turkmen hands on your sweat embroidered heavenly face. [5]
My antique Persian face never monsoon-ed with sobs yet the typhoon of my sighs roared for other than your sake. And this moment, I roar as you chanted soundless under the rags:
The egg of my eyes has cracked
And flown through the broken shell of my love
The hatched sphinx of Denial
Rushing through her veins
Elixir of eternal youth, gushing tears mine
Her bones hollowed with emptiness of my heart
Exhaling the fiery sobs, flames
Of my soundless screams
I am not a father, instead a beast sojourning the circumference of this planet, a false pretence that I am a luminous moon in lofty orbit, however in reality:
Though people think I dance upon this earth
Twisting, squirming, diving in depth of pain
Though people hear my words upon their ears
Sobbing, weeping, moaning melancholic pretence
Though people gaze upon I comfortably asleep
Blazing, bedding of fire, deluxe set for restful weeps
I walk upon the arctic trails of destiny
Gardening the frozen, broken
Branches of false hopes
In lustful orchards of life
I am that drunken gardener hoeing my false Garden of Eden, where the orchards bloom with blossoms of amnesia harvesting the mirage of bountiful bitter fruits of neglect:
Come my love! Come see my garden
Frozen tears blossoming
On dead branches
Fragrance of betrayal
Flowing underneath the salty
Marshes of my weeps
Children drowning, loud in laughter
Slipping on icy branches, lifeless trunks
And when I charge, tempest of rescue
Splashing through the deadening insidious waters
Helplessly I find myself blind
Eyes drowned in boiling tears
Since I wear my sobbing face
Upon the soles of my hurried steps!
Now I am the painful conclusion of your tale, an eye-less lion roaring betwixt the dead poets’ verse, muffled under the capsized Haitian vessel. Crushing my pen with such powerful bite sprinkling the ink on “my Self” and “I” setting ablaze the abomination of a beast while the gales of my screams spread my ashes, these poems, all over the earth hoping with shame that my Beloved forgets me once and forever.
[1] “The valley” is the hearth the courtyard of the Creator the life-giver. Khosrow is killed by the Creator only to find eternal-life anew. The poet is lost and he is happy never to return.
[2] Beloved has forbidden for mortals to see IT with their eyes, and that barrier in Sufi poetic tradition is called the Gates or the door where all Sufis die from the love and heartache for this unseen Beloved. They value the dust of this court above and beyond any wealth in the heavens and earth. Khosrow says, Hey! I am dying into this dust pile at the courtyard of the Beloved, wash me not because this dust makes me glitter like pearls at my death. The concept of washing the dead body comes from the Muslim’s tradition of bathing a person prior to burial.
[3] When a man prepares to meet the Creator, drunken with ITs love, does things that to normal sober people comes across as crazy and ludicrous. Poet says, I do whatever I have to do being in love, and does not matter what you say.
[4] I replaced the poet’s name ‘Khosrow’ by ‘regal’ because that is the meaning of his name in Farsi. Also the way he attached the suffix for “being” or “-like” I concluded that he meant a pun to use his name to indicate Regal-ness.
[5] Muslims believe that there are two Angels per person, on his shoulders recording his words and actions.
Background: African boy drying from AIDS in solitude. May Allah grant me such regal grace at the day of my death.
©
2004-2002, Dara O. Shayda
