Meri hasti fazaaye hairat-abaad-e-tamanna hai

My being is a wilderness of stunned dismay; The lament men speak of is a myth that fades away.

What is the spring, or fall? The seasons have no hold; We are the same: the cage, the grief for wings grown old.

A lover’s faith is chance, my friend, a truth to know; For who has seen the fruit a grieving heart can grow?

My playful thoughts could not endure despair’s dark blow; To wring one’s hands in grief makes new desires grow.

Unless a tear can pierce the blistered skin of pain, The helpless gaze is trapped on hopelessness’s plain.

Through this hard prison-life, we know what freedom means; The spark itself is caught inside the flint’s stone veins.

Her casual neglect leaves all my hopes askew; Her glance, a sacred thread on wine of brilliant hue.

Majnun’s obsession holds the wilderness in thrall; The dark eye of the deer reflects Layla’s mole for all.

Love knows the art of grafting friendship’s sapling true; Its striving root feeds the deep dream-vein of Zulaikha, too.

My melting heart presents a brew of seething need; The heart’s black core itself is longing’s primal seed.

The color cannot fade, with so much blood to stain; The hunter’s hennaed claw is the trapped bird in its chain.

The fire of love brings ruin, fearless and profound; From a vein inside the stone, a spark’s root can be found.

The pearl of purpose hides where self-knowledge resides; The diver is the image, and the mirror is the tides.

My friends, don’t soothe me with some other lover’s tale; My sleeping-spell is cast by dreams that made Zulaikha pale.

To soothe the restless infant of my heart’s own ache, My thoughts pick phantom flowers from the past for beauty’s sake.

My robe of ruin’s cut by some external hand; The proud road I now walk is but a desert strand.