Journey to Hamedan
سفر به همدان
من لا سفر له لا زاد له
Who doesn't travel - doesn't grow.¹
Ibn 'Arabi
Bird is singing melody,
Singing to the straying wind...
Echo snatches fallen sounds,
And away escapes to South...
Evening clouds sailing low,
To the South too you go...
Leaves are falling at a breath:
Golden, orange, red...
The hands I spread
To rain of leaves - fragile dreams...
Lake enchanted of Tabriz
Mirror'd last sunset of summer,
And immersed in misty slumber -
Contemplation of remembrances
Of this summer passed so quick...
Rustle light of steps I hear,
Drawing closer... very near...
But no one I see, but wind -
Gentle scented breeze I feel...
"Evening kind..." Behind me said
Voice familiar... With a carpet wrapt
Dervish young again I met.
"Lo, behold the clouds running
To the South, look the birds in flocks are flying
To the South... Drowned song of Summer yet
In the lake... Time to make peregrination then..."
Me: But where, speak..?
Dervish: Where thou shalt learn some mysteries...
Then he unrolled the carpet wide -
The carpet wrought in olden times,
Sat thereon and spoke to me,
"Come please, and seat..."
I did...
In Farsi then he something spake,
And carpet from the ground raised...
Uphovered high above the trees,
As if a leaf on wind, it did
Aspire to the South...
We are a gust of dream; a bird;
We are twined of rhymes a boat,
Onward we speed, aspire, fly;
The doubts, limitations left behind...
We are a cloud 'mid the clouds,
We may lay the top of mount,
And be the haze of secrets; fume...
Before us rolling argent moon...
Her sheen bewitching calling, calling,
Her rays by strange reflections falling...
Dervish: And thus awhile we are upon the way,
On Faith I shall to thee relate:²
When Ibrahim Khawwas was asked,
What Faith verily be,
He replied on saying thus:
Anow from the answer to thee
I refrain, lest words be just a sound;
I am setting out for Mekka, would ye
Accompany me, that thou
May'st learn what you seek..? The seeker agreed.
They travelled 'long the desert dry,
Two loaves of bread, two cups of water every day
Appeared... One master gave to apprentice,
Another for himself he took... One day
A man with hoary hair, as if from nowhere
To us came... Narrates the seeker, and
Conversed with master for awhile, then went somewhere.
"Who was this man?"
I asked the master, "Indeed this be
The answer to thy question." He replied,
"It was Khadir³,
He begged to let him trip with me, but I
Refused of fear that
With him I might
Put confidence on him instead of God, and then
My trust in God would have been mar'd...
True Faith indeed is trust in God."
The story told, dissolved the night and calmed,
We reached precincts of Hamedan.
"The time to take my leave of you,
Its own angel hath the very lieu..."
The dervish spake with sadness slight...
September 2018
1 Ibn 'Arabi, The Book of Signs of Those of Revelation
كتاب الإعلام بإشارات أهل الإلهام
2 Story related by Ali Hujwiri in "The Revelation of the Veiled"
کشفُ المحجوب
3 Khadír (or Khidr الخضر) - Mysterious teacher of Moses,
appeared to the most elevated Sufis.
فذكر إبراهيم التيمى، رحمه الله:
صَدَق الخضرُ، وكلُّ ما يحكيه فهو حق،
وهو عالمُ أهلِ الأرض، وهو رئيسُ الأبدال،
وهو من جنود الله عز وجلّ في الأرض
Told Ibrahim Al-Taimi, be mercy of God
upon him: All what is told
about Khadir is true. He is the savant among
the mystics, and he is the principal of
Abdāls, he belongeth to the host of God,
exalted and great is He, upon earth.
Related by Al-Makki
Abu Talib Al-Makki, The Sustenance of Hearts 1
قوت القلوب في معاملة المحبوب
Translation from Arabic
by Denis Bezmelnitsin
|
