Tag Archives: ghazal

To acquire this body for you, millions of others have I burned;
So there can be no question of my asking for it to be returned.

Because I see my shadow I know love’s sun has risen.
But my fascination with my shadow has become my prison.

What of the warm-housed ones, and us on this trackless journey?
How great the distance between us — we are bound and they are free.

The beach trembling under your fingers
the wave erasing the pattern of your careful nails;
Time’s rollers are laundry-ringers
coiling clothes of flesh into baskets.

Each I have known
   has been a mirror
To a new aspiration
You alone
   are the giver
Of beyond-mere-jubilation.

You can endure the monotony of evenings,
of pleasures, of seas, mornings,
trains and motor cars, because all these are beings
born of your certitude. They are your singings from solitude.

When, at last, I thought I knew your loveliness
I fell from the sun into an emptiness
in which the Pacific was a jewel
glistening on one finger of your caress.

In the mirror of the First Silence
   we, Beloved, made a pact:
You would speak me into being-fact;
I would speak you in every word I spoke.

I would lie a long night on your breast breathing like a child;
And you would not begrudge me my resurrection;
from the beginning of time, you have remained undefiled.