Konya. The Red Hill
There is a hill in Sille red,
Once I repaired that to check;
A formless shrub I found on it.
- Whether ash I am, or hint,
Or perhaps I am "perhaps",
I am something yet unsaid...
'Mid the red and rare weed
Rare phantom with me speak...
- A resemblance thus I bear
To a smoke at least, what a
Scenery - hill afire smoking...
Then I hear someone's going...
"Long ago upon this spot
I perchance the verse forgot,
Long I sought in mem'ry, but
No whit I found; this shrub -
What from me has slipped..."
Dervish said on greeting me.
Shrub: I beg your pardon, but you two
Luckily complete the view:
As a colon on the leaf...
Dervish: Rangers met on distant hill
To listen what does not exist...
Shrub: I am too frail for this.
Dervish: Who shall unravel shadows' talk
With old forgotten smoke?
Me: I may leave a ribbon-tip:
وتلك الحضرة البرزخية، هي ظل
الوجود المطلق من الاسم النور
The presence of barzah - is a shadow
of absolute Being from the Name "Light".
Ibn 'Arabi
Not by itself the shade exists, -
By God who is.
The symbol of dependance.
Dervish:
وحضرة الخيال التي عبرنا عنه بمجمع
البحرين، هو يجسد المعاني، ويلطف
المحسوس، ويقلب في عين الناظر عين
كل معلوم، فيجمع عالم الغيب وعالم الشهادة
The presence of imagination¹ we have expressed
as the junction of two seas - it is when
the meanings receive form, and
the sensible becomes subtle. Thus
is turning in beholder's eyes the essence
of every intelligible. So conjoin the world
unseen and the visible world.
Ibn 'Arabi
The mirror does reflect
The realm and what it has,
Where it deserved the lodge.
I also have a ribbon-tip...
Shrub: All offerings affix to twigs
Of mine, I now the shrub of gifts!
Me: Before idea the being got,
Where is it stored?
Dervish: Within ink-pot:
الخيال المطلق هو المسمى بالعماء
Absolute dream is called "The divine darkness".
Ibn 'Arabi
The rare bird the top has reached -
Thereby her tribe enriched:
There should be bridge
To receive a share from one of seven plains.
But lay up for yourselves
treasures in heaven.
Matthew 6:20
If thou found the argent ray -
Preserve, because 'tis frail!
کاروان دایم ز گردون می‌رسد
تا تجارت می‌کند وا می‌رود
Caravan ever from heaven arrives
Trade to perform, and homeward hies.
Rumi, Masnavi 3:4190
Next day again I went to seek
This red ephem'ral hill,
But couldn't find...
July 2023
1 Khayal خيال - imagination, dream, the space of
dreams, visions, existing independently from
individual imagination, which can be linked
to this space:
والفرقان بين الخيال المتصل والخيال المنفصل،
أن المتصل يذهب بذهاب المتخيِّلِ، والمنفصل
حضرة ذاتية قابلة دائماً للمعاني والأرواح،
فتجسدها بخاصيتها لا يكون غير ذلك، ومن
هذا الخيال المنفصل يكون الخيال المتصل
The difference between the imagination linked,
and the imagination separate: the linked
imagination fades when a dreamer stops dreaming;
But the separate imagination is substantial
presence ever receiving the meanings and
spirits, giving them form according to their
identity, only thus. From this separate
imagination is the imagination linked.
Ibn 'Arabi
Ibn 'Arabi, Imagination, The World of Barzah and Ideas
الخيال عالم البرزخ والمثال
Translations from Arabic and Farsi
by Denis Bezmelnitsin
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