Trafficking of Love

Ready to Depart

The autumn leaf is poised to fall;
The rider’s foot is in the stirrup,
Mounted and ready to depart.
Soon I must also leave this world.
However many buildings I construct,
None can protect me from the demolition
I deserve.

Though born from the water of life,
Now I merely skim the surface as a bubble.
I am unable to bow my head in prayer,
Drowned as I am, in an ocean of sin.

When I consider what I’ve done,
I know I deserve each and every trouble.
Blacken my face with soot and
Parade me on a donkey.
I must admit
The truth before I go.

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Poetry

God bless this pen-case and satchel of mine;
Make fragrant every letter that I write,
To make the land of the Afghans sweet smelling.

Make every line of my verse tresses of the beloved.
Her seductive glance flashes like an arrow;
May every word I use be its tip.

Trafficking in love is a gruelling art;
Make this hardship easy for me.
Pull back the veil between me and my beloved;
Reveal my lover’s uncovered face to me.

Though the quest of others is more noble,
Just let me be a beggar at my lover’s hut.
Though others search elsewhere,
Keep me intent on my lover alone.

You can no better prevent me from joining her
Than restraint the morning breeze from the garden.
Make this simple poetry of Rahman pleasing,
With the blessing of your friend, O God.

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True Religion

The rules of right and wrong
Simply do not apply to those in love.
The ones enamoured by fair cheeks and raven hair
Are careless of doctrine and dogma.

The greatest joy for me
Is to drink the draught the lover serves,
For wine to cleanse my greenish cloak
Of all religious show.
The world may consider it a disgrace to drink,
But I have trampled my reputation underfoot.

For those besotted by love
Nothing is forbidden.
There’s no distinction between ruby and pebble,
Halal or haram*, faith or unbelief.
A permissible passion has swept
Over me.

*’Halal means permitted; ‘haram’ means forbidden.

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Jihad

Enmity is evil and war forbidden;
But enmity and war with the ego are encouraged.

The manly task is to wage war on lust
And not conform to the pattern it dictates;

Feigning piety with the drooping head of mediation, but
Secretly dreaming of fancy new clothes.

Piety is nothing to do with gender or age;
I’d sacrifice a hundred carnal men
For the shoe of just one devout woman.

A virtuous young man
Far excels an immoral old grey- beard.

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Friendship

A friend who is unfaithful is no friend at all;
Any endeavour that is not enduring is no task at all.

The sacrifice entailed in such work is hard for us,
But all is made easy by passion.

Though worry disturbs a man from sleep,
Yet the carefree are barely aroused.

For the lover all that counts in life is being together;
Time apart is no life at all.

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The Precious Pearl

The wealthy may be rolling in gold and silver,
But it’s the scholarly who keep their treasured knowledge safe.
Claiming to be a super power is futility;
However powerful one may seem.
Never say ”I’m king of the castle”,
For over every chief God has placed another.

Just a few are intimate with God;
Not everyone can be this way.
The world is a giant mountain of black stone
In which there is but one prized jewel to be found.

Only a king is followed by an army;
No one else has their own troops.
God created each of us to be streets apart,
Not for us all to be all alike.

Awareness of the hurried pace of life
Forces you to conclude the sun is soon to set.

Don’t be upset by my lament;
For in this ocean of tears I’ve found the pearl.
May Rahman not to be found wearing pious robes,
But the rumpled turban of the tramp.

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Sow Flowers

Sow flowers to make a garden bloom around you,
The thorns you sow will prick your own feet.
Arrows shot at others
Will return to hit you as they fall.
You yourself will come to teeter on the lip
Of a well dug to undermine another.
Though you look at others with contempt,
It’s you whose body will be reduced to dust.

Humanity is all one body;
To torture another is simply to wound yourself.
When you don’t look for faults in others,
They will conceal your weakness in return.

Make your path straight now, by the bright light of day;
For pitch darkness will come without warning.
Consider no wickedness insignificant, however slight;
For the little deeds of darkness soon pile up.
If another does you harm, return them good,
Or evil will devour you too.
The heart which is safe in the storm
Is the one which carries
Others’ burdens like a boat.

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Equality

You spend so much time dwelling on the faults of others;
For God’s sake why don’t you see your own shortcomings?

You turn the tiny speck of error you detect
Into a towering mountain of vice.

Your own sin is as big as a mountain;
Yet by sleight of hand you’ve reduced it to a fly’s wing.

If the scales of justice were in your hand,
You would count your mule equal to another’s horse.

Damned and cursed be such justice of yours,
That you switch justice for injustice.

God gave you the status of an angel,
But you make yourself a donkey.

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Featured Image: A shrine to the Pashto poet Abdur Rehman Baba, damaged in a bombing on Thursday, outside Peshawar in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/06/mullah-omar-tries-to-rein-in-pakistans-taliban/?_r=0

Dance of the Beloved

Wine

When he got a taste of wine and joviality
The Sufi forgot his morning prayers.

When lovers come together it is either
A bowl of wine or the dance of the Beloved.

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Dervishes

I’ve seen the ways of the Dervishes,
And how they obtain communion with God
In a single stride.

You can’t fail to respect them when you watch their conduct.
Theirs is the path to God and Prophet too.

All the words they teach are acceptable at God’s door.
That’s why such an excited throng of devotees follow the dervishes,
To visit their shrines when they are gone.

Seasons come and go- but there is no autumn there;
The flowers they grow bloom forever.

Their labor is forever blessed;
Once all is abandoned for the word of God.

All of the Rahman’s works can be sacrificed for this one poem;
Which tells of the conduct of the dervishes.

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Foam

River water may flow fast,
But the deeds of this world pass faster still.

Worldly business is like a dream;
Who can have confidence in such dreams and fancies?

Like one who dreams of wealth and property,
Yet wakes to neither land nor riches;

Foam seen on the water’s surface,
When grasped, leaves nothing in your hand;

As smoke, that seems like mountains,
But is dispersed by the lightest breeze;

Made and broken in a moment,
Like clay in the potter’s hands.

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Appearances

What light we see is veiled;
For beauty is beyond our understanding.

Don’t be fooled by outward appearances;
But look to the inside.

You can’t tell if a walnut is soft or hard
By looking at the shell.

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All Three the Same

The lover’s face, the sun and the moon
Are all one and the same.

When you depart this world;
Gold, silver and black earth
Are all one and the same.

I have no need of sweets;
For the lover’s lips, honey and sugar
Are all one and the same.

In the blind jeweler’s shop
A cheap bread, a pearl and a diamond
Are all one and the same.

Because of cruel rulers,
Peshawar, the fire and the grave
Are all one and the same.

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Passionate Love

Passionate love is not the kind of knowledge
To be found in school.

School speaks merely of religious ways;
Love is more than religion.

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