The Poetic Notebook of Mullazade Zaigham of Laulab

(13)

It is the sign of living nations their fate changes day and night;

their life is sincerity and generosity to perfection, Nature too forgives their follies;

in manners qalandar-like, in majesty as Iskander: these people are like naked swords.

Beauty and majesty of a self-conscious man flows from khudi: it is the text, the rest are commentaries.

I don’t deny the splendour of the days of ‘Id, but alas! only the takbirs of free men are acceptable to God.

What can the sage know my songs’ secret? the words of man of madness are beyond reason’s ken.

(14)

How heretically do you play the game of life? you adjust yourself to times, rather than to thine self.

I no longer see in the schools heart of Junaid and insight of Ghazali and Razi.

Nature—the great lawgiver—decrees: the ways of falcon are forbidden in the religion of sparrows.

The same heavenly law-giver decreed for the male falcon: fly about the skies, don’t deal with the earth.

I have not left speaking the naked truth, though the people may speak ill of me before the kings.

We have neither Samarkand nor Bukhara to offer, the dervish can only pray for the Shirazi Turk