The Madman and His Beloved

The Madman and His Beloved

The Madman and his Beloved


Once there was a passerby, a lover, a drunkard, a madman.
He was like a sun unto his own day and a silence unto his own night.
With beams of sunlight strangely emanating from his eyes,
His heart was like unto honey for the bee,
His words were like unto the daily miracles of a Prophet's life,
And the cup he brought was filled with the wine which would burn any lips!

He would stand naked and enchanted in the wind,
As he was drunk with the Beloved's beauty
Which he saw in the Persian Moon, the Fragrance of his life,
The Wine in his breathing, a girl named Shirin Navabi.

Since his longing for her had claimed his sanity,
Nothing could hide his Beloved from him.
He saw her in the silhouette, on the horizon.
Everywhere he gazed, life was moistened
With the Essence of his Love!

One morning, in a field of amber grain,
I found him befriending his own solitude which seemed to have no end,
Whose space no song could encompass.

Thus I heard him say unto the wind, his fellow traveler,

"O Love's Messenger unto jasmines and thistles alike!
Do you too proceed with great restlessness in your heart?
Do you deem yourself swifter than my arrow?
Does your longing too have to endure the pangs of separation
From your Beloved, whose beauty is as fiery as the sun?

"Behold, I accept the seasons which you bring,
But what shall I say unto the winters of your grief, my friend?"

Then turning his gaze towards the morning sun, he said,

"Shirin, O Shirin,
I do accept the seasons that pass over my heart,
For behold, this pain-filled longing of mine is self-chosen,
Every morn and eve, Love's sacred tears guide my tender feelings
Towards the burning image of your now distant self.

"Since I found you, you have always been like unto a nymph
Walking besides me with soft whisperings,
And sometimes like unto a tempest in my spirit!
Where else shall I seek Allaah's Beauty
And how else shall I find it so tender and pure,
If not in the light of your countenance, O Beloved?

"Shirin, O Shirin,
In this separation, let me be murdered by my own longing for you,
For this restlessness of mine has wings whose shaking and beating
Which even the mountains fear.
Who dares say you are not the blossoming of my desires, O Beloved?

"O mad currents in the air! Bring me my Beloved's sweet voice
And let me yield to it like a faint voice in the roaring of lovers!
O morning sun! Weave her face before me for her splendor is made of light,
O tranquil day! Let me rise with the dawn from the East with her everyday, endlessly!

"O song birds! Sing me my Beloved's song so that she shall come with me
Leaping upon the hills of my delight!
O dust of the seasons! Dance with me, let us celebrate my Beloved's beauty,
Whose eyes are like unto the crystal windows of all of Love's hues,
Whose hair is like unto autumn leaves adrift in the space of tenderness,
Whose cheeks are but eternity wrapped in shyness,
Whose lips are more delicate than those of a thousand angels for a mouth thirsting such as mine,
Whose fragrance is a gift from life unto itself,
Whose existence is like unto the snow-bound linen land that hides all of Love's ecstasy.

"When her gaze falls upon me, Allaah's Holy Face is unveiled,
And behold, I am a flower forever in bloom and a falcon forever in flight!

"Tell me, who can veil the mist and summit such as your beauty from my sight?
Are there fields and mountains beyond my Love's landscape?"

I was stunned by his singing which he had committed in such drunkenness
And I said unto myself, letting the wind scatter my voice,

"Behold the madman!
The harvest has come, the beclouding of the mind has passed!
For surely I have found a lover who has tirelessly searched for Love's greatest treasure with quivering madness and who has found it in his boundless heart!"

He noticed my sighing and exclaimed,

"This is but the first station of Love!
So much more is hidden in my trembling, O young man!
Do you not know that your longing too contains the silent knowledge of the seasons?"

I answered him with a stammer,

"Sir, it seems to me that you kiss Love's agony as if it were a river of delight,
O madman, tell me how long have you been separated from your Beloved?"

The drunkard said unto me,

"O innocent heart, if you would know the summits of life,
Then you must know the secrets of death!

"I was separted from my Beloved when they, the people of Isfahan, built the city walls,
Leaving beggars like me wandering outside.
Ever since then I have roamed the hills and the deserts, ever distant and alone.

"But in the wilderness, my imaginings have lent me a house of dreams,
And it is when I pass through light-woven vineyards does my Beloved come to me
As if out of the house which my longing has built for me with its own bleeding hands.

"Has not my longing spanned the beauty of my Beloved in my vision?

"Speak not of the depths of separation if you know not the dignity of this infinite longing.
But tell me, have you ever seen a lover fully tamed and without a wound?
For Love shall not span its thorny ways save you may pass through your own understanding of joy and sorrow and breathe the fire that dwells in every living thing."

Then I heard him utter these words,

"O tender branches, know that even in this separation is my pleasure!
How else shall a traveler in the Kingdom of Love reach the Beloved first
save he offends his fellow travelers and the whole Universe with jealousy?
Therefore I sing so that the hilltops may burn for me in their jealousy and therefore crumble,
And so that the stillness of the night may be filled with my song enthroned upon its heart.

"O humble earth, do not store that which is deemed forbidden in your silence,
But sing it out loud for it shall not burden the sky but make it enflamed!
O running brooks, have you not found the harp of your souls in the Sea?

"Shirin, O Shirin,
With you are my gardens and my amber grain!
Do not hide yourself from me for before your beauty,
I am but a bee desirious to gather the honey of your flowers!

"O Fountain of Allaah's Beauty!
Yield your sweetness to my shyness!
Am I not a caged soul taking wings before you?
Am I not like unto the abyss calling unto the sky?
Though I utter my words as if in madness and confusion,
It is with fullness of heart that I sing this only song of mine,
And my vision of your beauty is never lost in my singing!

"Yet my words are but grains of sand in this boundless desert
That burns when the harvest of Love's pleasures is at hand.

"Shirin, O Shirin,
Am I not a shadow trembling before the nakedness of your image,
And a pinch of sugar melting into the sun of your beauty?

"Is there among you a lover whose spirit is not offended by madness?
Is there among you a toiler who knows that Love's heritage is discovered in pain and not in reason?
Is there among you a seeker who seeks nothing but himself at the heart of life?

"Verily, I'm blind unto the night of my Beloved,
When she may be hidden in its stealthy garment,
For Love has unveiled the mystery of light for my sake!
This beauty, oh this beauty is my Way and my Religion!

"My breath is from the restless tides of the Qalandars,
It is only after I drink the wine of my own silence that I allow myself to sing for my Beloved Whose honey encompasses Love's sacred longing for Itself."

As soon as he ceased to speak, I saw a thick mist of fire descending upon him
And as soon as I realized that the silence of my soul was the one witnessing this,
The madman disappeared with the mist.

And behold, I heard his voice in my heart
And felt the presence of Love's wings in my soul.
And I realized that the madman was but my own heart and soul,
The lover that lived in my deeper dream and higher awakening.

Ishq,

{Dani}