On this Valentine’s Day, those of us living alone might wonder where our “true love” is to be found. Sufi poems tell us that our Beloved is located in every nook and cranny, temple and alley way, breast and heart, tree and lock of hair.
Reach out and touch the heart of your love today no matter its shape or where you find it.
The Sun of Your Face
Is this darkness the night of Power, or the black falling of your hair?
Is the rising light daybreak, or the reflection of your face?In the book of Beauty, is this a first line?
Or merely a fragment I scribble, tracing your eyebrows?Is this boxwood gathered in the orchard, or the rose garden’s cypress?
The Tree of Paradise, heavy with dates, or the shape of your standing?Is this scent from a Chinese deer, or the fragrance of infused water?
Is it the breathing of roses carried on wind, or your perfume?Is this scorching a lightning bolt’s remnants, or the burning mountain?
The heat of my sighs, or your inner body?Is this Mongolian musk, or the purest of ambergris?
Is it the hyacinth unfolding, or your plaited curls?Is this magic, or a chalice of red wine at dawn?
Your narcissus eye drunk with the way, or a sorcerer’s work?Is it the garden of Eden, or some earthly paradise?
The temple of those who have mastered the heart, or an alley?Others all turn toward adobe and mud when they pray to the Sacred —
The temple of Hayati’s soul turns toward the sun of your Face.Bibi Hayati (? — 1853) (born Kerman province of Persia; now Iraq)
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