Poetry (3)

Poetry (3)

In the Name of AllaaHu, the Infnite Reality of Love, the Inexhaustible Source of Love


A Secret Love

"There are wild wandering Sufis
called Qalandars,
who are constantly tickled with life.

It's scandalous how they love and laugh
at any small event.

People gossip about them, and that
makes them deft in their cunning,
but really a great love-wrestling goes on
inside these wanderers, a flood of sunlight
that's drunk with the whole thing..."
- Jalal ad-Din Rumi

Finally, one last secret remains
A secret which is like a soundless echo on the endless horizon
And words are helpless to express it

But tell me, O Qalandar,
Whose poetry is it whose glow adorns the setting sun
With its sublime hands caressing the endless sky?

Whose face is it that appears at dawn over the ocean
And intoxicates even the guardians of the horizons?

Whose song is it that moves life in secret
Which the waves have adopted as their own?

Whose beauty is it which is like a faint lamp in the shoreless ocean of feelings,
Burning for reason unknown throughout the night?

Time has passed me by,
The body can't help but age,
Yet my soul is still burning,
Burning with passion
It has not healed yet
In fact, it is much worse than ever before
My soul's sorrow continues to rain upon my heart's shores
Love remains my curse

What reality is this that's flowing in my heart?
Who is inviting me?
Is it the beauty of the roses in some distant field?
Is it a girl whose sweetness conquers the shy day,
Whose hair and skin the wind always yearns to caress?
Is it a beauty that hides behind form and image?
Is it a song beyond our days?
Is it a silence beyond our nights?

O Beloved,
I'm drunk with the wine of love
How can I refuse such delight?
Come, sit with me on this longing-woven carpet of grass
Let me sip the wine of love in the presence of your reality

Where were you when I was yearning for you in isolation?
When traces of you were not found except in the dance of the leaves
And in the morning light?

When once I felt life propagating madly through my veins
I realized my life was no longer mine
It became yours when I became dimensionless,
When I befriended your silence alone in the company of suffering and insult

In those days,
Sorrow used to smile at me and I would smile back at it
My soul was wrapped, hidden in misery
While people were happy swallowing the luxuries of the world

One night, my thoughts drowned in the ocean of beauty, before your face
And I was left intoxicated
But oh, you just left my perception without saying farewell

If and only if destiny enjoins us someday
I will take your hand and put it on my chest
That your hand becomes mine
Just as my heart beat is yours

But there is no hand but your hand
And there is no destiny but union

Together we shall walk towards the heart of silence
And vanish between the shadow and the soul, unfolded

But vanishing is yours alone, just as appearance is yours
And so you alone shall remain, let me be no more

Oh, why do people call a love such as mine a disease?
Who shall remain at rest
When beauty shatters the silent hills of his heart at the dawn of his youth?

Hearts of lovers are aching, aching O Sufi,
Intense longing crowns them with pain
Their dream is to return love for love in perfect intimacy
Yet hindrances always come to them and mock their reality

What shall remind you of what true lovers are like?
Listen to the story of a pair of elk living on a barren highland
Though food is to be found no where except in the dust of the seasons,
They remain together
Listen to the story of the doves set free, soaring so freely into the sky, where freedom runs unshackled,
They will still go back to their owners
Listen to the story of the herring whose patience is unshakable,
Though throughout their lives the waves rage at them

If the full moon vanishes at dawn,
Or if the sun is late for its rise,
Then my Beloved's face shall replace their radiance
Her smile won't stop on her lips,
But it shall become the glow of the sun and the full moon combined

The sun and the full moon are in fact ashamed of their glory
Because their light cannot compare with my Beloved's light
And when she blinks, the stars either hide themselves in agony
Or disperse their reality in surrendering love

O evening wind, bring me to my Beloved
Or just mention the Beloved's name
In exchange for her enchantment
Because for me it is the same,
Whether I gaze at her or at the moon

In this place of exile, I know nothing and see nothing but your shadow
But you have allowed the fingers of imagination to unite us
We are but two candles lit from the same fire
But you alone are the fire and I am but a particle being annihilated

This endless mystery has nothing but itself to explain it,
This love met in passing,
This age old pain,
This story of separation is shared and played alongside lovers
And the same shy sweetness of reunion is sung
Again and again

Ishq Allaahu Mahbud Lillaah...

{Dani}