Shama

The Candle

O Candle, in this world I too am filled with sighs, A restless seed within that in the fire cries.

Love gave to you the heat of inner fire's might, And made me one who sells red tears of fading light.

A candle at a feast, or on a lonely tomb, You are embraced by tears of sorrow in the gloom.

Your gaze is fixed as one who keeps a secret deep, While my own eyes the seeds of separation reap.

In Kaaba and in idol-house, your light is one, While I, in webs of mosque and temple, am undone.

Your rising smoke contains the grandeur of a sigh; Does some heart lie concealed where your bright splendors lie?

You burn because you are from Heaven's lightning far, The heedless think your burning is the light you are.

You burn and yet you have no knowledge of your state, You see, but cannot see your own consuming fate.

I am like quicksilver, with restless passion rife, And am Aware of all my restless heart's own strife.

This was some whim of One who stands beyond all need, To make me feel my own heart's melting sorrow bleed.

This Awareness of mine denies me any rest, A thousand sleeping fires are hidden in my breast.

From this, distinctions of the high and low are born, The rose's scent, the wine's effect that greets the morn.

The garden, rose, and scent, the nightingale's sad plea, This Awareness is the strife of 'you' and 'me'.

When Beauty on creation's dawn first won Love's heart, The primal word, 'Be!', taught its soul the burning part.

The order came: "Behold creation's garden bloom, And with one eye, see thousand dreams consumed by gloom."

Ask me no news about existence's veiled design; The dusk of parting was the dawn that made me shine.

Those days are gone when I from every cage was free, My nest adorned Mount Sinai's sacred, burning tree.

A captive now, I call my cage a garden bright, This house of exile is my homeland and my light.

The memory of home became a causeless ache, A thirst to see, a questing passion for its sake.

O Candle, see how far thought's grand illusion strays, Behold his fate, who earned the angels' highest praise.

I am the theme of parting, high as stars that gleam, I am the song born of the cosmic Poet's dream.

When He composed my verse, He willed that I be seen, And wrote me on the book of all that's ever been.

The pearl is pleased to dwell within a fist of clay, Though weak the binding, lofty is the theme's display.

It is the fault of an eye that sees all things amiss, The world's a stage for consciousness to find its bliss.

This chain of time and space, it is a trapping snare, A collar for that Beauty fond of worldly fare.

I long to find my goal, but I have lost the way, O Candle, I'm a slave to what my eyes betray.

You are the Hunter, and the cruel trap's design, You are the temple roof, the bird upon that shrine.

Am I the Beauty, or the Love that melts in pain? Is mine the pride divine, or prayer said in vain?

Let not this ancient secret ever touch the tongue, Lest that old tale of gallows and of rope be sung.