by Sunil Sharma
My heart broke apart, but pain
for you won’t diminish.
The moon at night
rises opposite your face,
but the day will never come
when the moon can oppose it.
My face is pallid gold, and I grind it
with the dust at your door,
but to bond with you
is unattainable alchemy.
At your hands, my tears are a sash
hung over heaven’s shoulders,
but my hands cannot hang
draped around your neck.
I sit in sorrow:
though my soul departs,
my heart cannot
rise up and leave.
My heart is a sad way station,
but no caravan can reach it bringing
patience or escape the brigands of absence.
Khusrau fell into the whirling abyss
of longing. The ship of his desire
will not make shore.
20 Ghazal 917: bahār bī rukh-i gulrang-i tu chi kār āyad
What use is spring without your rose-coloured cheek?
Your coming to me once comes out better
than a dozen springs. Were the plodding rose
to mount a zephyr and ride off at a gallop,
you would still leave it behind in a cloud of dust.
The image of your face abandons my eyes
so it won’t prick its feet on my eyelashes’
sharp thorns. Your bewitching eyes have left me
as thin as a strand of your hair, the single
strand they need to cast their magic spells.
He moves like a rider coming from the hunt
with a clutch of prey
hanging from the stirrups of his curls.
A heavy burden is the grief I bear for you,
but since I bear it for you, were it to weigh
a thousand times more, my heart wouldn’t grow heavy.
You are the heart’s desire, but when will poor
Khusrau come to embrace his desire?
21 Ghazal 918: labālab ār qadah k-az gulū furūd āyad
Bring a brimming goblet that slides
down the throat, and this yearning
perhaps will drain from my heart.
Don’t speak of repentance
or say that wine should slip my mind.
May my mind never slough off the jug!
What, repent of wine?
If its taste is made known,
angels will descend to its scent like flies.
I am in death’s bonds today. Sāqī,
let wine flow through her head
and flush her moonlike face.
The ascetic tablet of my litanies and prayers:
the shard of a jug
down which the wine-script dribbles.
Any bead of sweat that drips
from a beautiful face is a disaster,
a flood to carry off people’s hearts.
With the way we drink our own blood
at your door, how can you choke down
a single drop of wine?
Happy are the times when I think
of you day and night, and my life’s blood
splashes here and there from my eyes.
Open your veil and shut
your lovers’ mouths. Khusrau
may be sinking fast from their talk.
22 Ghazal 1002: bidān dilfarībī ki gītī namāyad
The wise ought not to set their hearts
on the seductiveness the world displays.
Why fall in love with the phantasms
of this world? The mirror shows
the face to be a borrowed thing.
Don’t think the knots on your brow
are firm and strong. Fate takes note
of them only to untie them.
How vainly you say, ‘I will stand firm.’
If life itself won’t stand firm, how will you?
Living, a person resembles form and sense.
Through form one tends to the sense.
My heart is in ruins
and people have hearts of stone.
One shouldn’t rebuild
this edifice with such blocks.
Humankind is chaff.
How can it cling to gold?
Straw is naturally drawn to amber.
You’ll get no provisions
from worthless companions:
the camel is mated, but no foal is born.
When you speak bitterly, the answer will be the same.
If you curse an enemy, he won’t reply sweetly.
Seeking insight from the immature is like a fool
rubbing his head against unfired brick.
If you ask me truly
about the story of this world,
it’s an easy lie
that Khusrau sings.
23 Ghazal 1007: du chashm-at ki tīr-i balā mīzanad
Your two eyes
let fly a barrage of troubles.
Why do they fire such arrows?
They hit bullseye in my soul
though the bow is drawn
aimed at someone else.
Agile tricksters
your eyes have it:
they aim over there
and strike right here.
Your sable hair
slinks up and robs
black night from behind.
Your proud walk
makes the dove’s bouncy trot
look like a crow’s lopsided hobble.
The nightingale
strikes up a lay in the key of love
waylays poor me and strikes me dumb.
Don’t leave Khusrau
shamefaced
out in the cold.
It’s bad enough
that sorrow inflames
this troubled soul.
24 Ghazal 1012: az ashk-i man bi-kūyat juz surkh gul narūyad
Only a red rose grows
where my tears fall in your lane.
Someone will die
from that rose
that breathes your scent.
Where a rain of kisses
falls from your lips,
the heart sprouts bud
upon bud, and the soul bears
fruit in bunches.
My eyes drank in my tears
and flooded with such blood
they inflict bloodshed
on themselves when no one
is in pursuit.
I’d die for him, yet when he
works himself into a rage,
everyone else is in on the story,
but he doesn’t say
a word to me.
In his breast Khusrau
bears such lonely sorrow
every hair
on his body
rightly weeps.
25 Ghazal 1034: yārān ki būda-and namīdānam kujā shudand
I do not know where they went, those
who once were friends. What day was it,
O Lord, when they abandoned us?
If spring comes and asks after them,
tell the zephyr, ‘All those flowers
are turned to grass,’ and ask the flower
when it pokes out from the earth
how those faces look that now are gone
deep beneath the dust of death.
Gaze upon those leaders now,
once the crown on creation’s head
all turned to dirt stuck to our feet.
Those motes of dust that disappear
like all things into thin air once
were suns that set below the earth.
Deceived by the world’s enchantments,
they laid all their treasures aside
and went in pursuit of alchemy.
The wares of time are playthings,
childish distractions. The captives
of its charms have no sense at all.
&n
bsp; No surprise if they did not get
the cash they craved: Fate’s treasurers
themselves are bankrupt, flat broke.
Khusrau, flee. In a faithless world,
expect no trust from a people
as untrue as the world itself.
26 Ghazal 1037: biyār bāda-yi raushan ki subh rūy namūd
Bring bright wine,
for dawn has shown its face.
At a moment like this,
there’s no being without wine.
Wine is here in my heart
right next to my abstinence.
Where is the cup to rinse
this besotted abstinence away?
If you don’t pour it quick,
my heart might burn up.
Flames of passion pulled me
under a Tigris of wine.
So deep in debt to her image,
so indigent, where can I live?
Absence is touchier than
a disgruntled landlord.
Doctor, don’t waste
your treatments here.
Your medications are no cure
for the wound of love.
Wise counsel won’t bring me back.
Love’s crushing grip
wrested the reins of peace
and patience from my hands.
If myriad cruelties rain down
from the azure heavens,
don’t imagine that even one is like
the absence of the friend.
May your love be refused
to a nobody like me.
Wormwood shouldn’t be ground
in a mortar of gold.
The friend’s face, so soothing
to the hell of my heart,
is the tale of the garden of Abraham
in the midst of Nimrod’s fire.
If you envy the aromatic
incense of my love,
come see the ashes
where once you saw aloe wood.
At evening prayer each night,
the world grows dark
with the smoke that rises
from Khusrau’s heart.
27 Ghazal 1124: dil zi tan burdī u dar jānī hanūz
You took the life from my body
and still you dwell in my soul.
You inflicted such pain, yet still
you are the cure. You cleft my breast
for everyone to see,
yet still you lurk there hidden.
With ire’s sword you laid waste
the kingdom of the heart, yet still
you rule, sultan among the ruins.
You’ve set your price at the value
of both worlds. Raise it higher,
for this price is still too low.
Let, O Lord, no man’s blood sully
your robes, though you wallow in it
still with no regrets. Like an infidel,
you’ve wreaked tyranny for years,
yet, for mercy’s sake,
you still disgrace the faith.
Like salt, I dissolved with tears,
yet your smile remains
as sweet as sugar still.
My soul is freed from the bonds
of its hovel, yet my heart languishes
still captive in your curling locks.
Old age and the worship of young
beauties sort together ill. How long yet,
Khusrau, will you be unsettled still?
28 Ghazal 1148: duzdāna dar āmad az daram dīshab
Stealthily, he came through my door last night,
hair like a thief’s lasso slung over his shoulders.
I stumbled to my feet, lost my footing,
and fell faint when he sat down.
Gazing on his beauty, I was stunned
and laid waste, swooning and drunk.
His bewitching, half-intoxicated eyes:
gazelle fawn in a rabbit sleep.
Whoever sees you for just one day
forgets the kingdom of this world and the next.
Without you, nectar turns to nettles,
and nettles turn to nectar in your hand.
Put a ring in Khusrau’s ear.
He is your slave and heeds your call.
29 Ghazal 1151: gar na man dīvāna gashtam z-īn dil-i bad-nām-i khvīsh
Why would I entrust my message
to birds and breezes if my infamous
heart had not driven me insane?
When evening falls, my heart catches
fire in solitude. I light a fine candle
each night in my Canaan. I awake
with a start. How long will I chain
the feet of my restless soul with dreaming
fancies of your coiling curls?
Since my fate is not to love you,
I keep patient by writing your name
in heart’s blood next to mine.
A swarm of pestilent winds blow
towards you from mortals’ sighs.
Hide your face!
Mercy on your rose-coloured cheek!
Who is Khusrau that you tire your lips
to torment him? Please, don’t squander
your insults like this just anywhere.
30 Ghazal 1155: mast u lāyaqil guzashtam az dar-i maykhāna dūsh
I passed through the tavern door last night drunk
out of my mind. Before the old vintner
I saw a pilgrim seated. He had left the world
by choice and everything in it behind.
Here and there musicians lay unconscious,
the harp at rest from its twanging, the lute’s lament
mum. The banquet taper stood yellow and thin
and trembling; a pleasing flame ran round its head
pleased to burn.
I was about to pass through the door
when suddenly from within, the pilgrim’s eye lit
on me, and he started to rail: ‘Where have you been?
How long will you wander aimless, you dullard?
Pass beyond yourself. Bring our libation.
Have a glass. Drink with us now down to the dregs
in the Magian temple. Take this advice
and you will attain whatever you wish.’
These tales are not for you, Khusrau. Go!
Don’t get so hot and bothered.
You have no fire like this.
31 Ghazal 1186: qabā vu pīrahan-i ū ki mīrasad tanash
When her robe and her shift touch her skin,
I’m envious of her robe,
and her robe, of her shift. She winks,
and people die, but does she grieve
the death of so many thousands
like me? Strange, one can get no sense
of the stamp of her mind,
but can see her spirit move
through the thin gauze of her body.
I feed off it, a parasite,
the way you tie people up in your curls.
Bring a rope and throw it around my throat.
I crumble to dust on her street.
I have only one regret, that this dust
contaminated with sorrow
might reach her on the wind.
Her lover, her pilgrim, dies a martyr
to love. He is blessed, and his shroud
becomes a regal robe. To be joined
with her is no more than this: the lover
is killed and plunged into her tangling hair.
You didn’t understand, Khusrau,
what your tongue asked of you. It was a hint
to take a sword and cut off its head.
32 Ghazal 1361: bakht bar gasht zi man ta tu biraftī zi baram
Luck turned on me when you left my side.
When will you turn like my luck and walk
back through my door? I thought I might
tell someone what my heart goes through.
Before I knew it, news of me
was known
around the world.
Once I did not take a single breath
without you. Now see what befalls
me in your absence. I turned my life
to a shield against the arrows
of separation, so everyone might know
I have turned my life over to you.
Without the rose of your face,
my heart contracts like a bud,
and I fear when it blooms, my shirt will burst.
One day I said, ‘Your stature resembles
the cypress.’ A disgraceful faux pas:
I do not dare to look so high.
I search again for my heart’s blood,
and I am certain that though I save
my heart from you, it will not save
my life. If you let me come to you,
I will give up the world. How can
I enter your street and leave all
this behind? As long as the phantom
of your fair visage is in sight, it displays
the kingdom of both worlds for me to see.
With patience, Khusrau, one can behave
with moderation, but I fear
I get worse with each passing day.
33 Ghazal 1374: ay rukhat chun māh u az mah bīsh ham
Your cheek is like the moon, and yet
more moon than moon. You tortured
my heart and left behind a wound, too.
Your wink mows the other beauties down
lined up in a row. If it’s not too much trouble,
mow down my poor heart, too.
You cast a shadow on my joy,
darkened my heart’s day, and eclipsed
the age of far-sighted reason, too.
‘Kill me if you won’t comfort me,’
I said to you. You’re too lazy