Through this blood veil
the lover sees a beautiful walk.
Reason says, There are only six
directions: north, east, south, west,
up, and down. There is no way
out of those limits.
Love says, But I have
many times escaped.
Reason comes to a marketplace
and begins haggling prices.
Love wanders away with other
business to transact, something
to do with incomparable beauty.
There are secret things happening.
Hallaj listens to whispers and walks off the speaker’s
platform onto a scaffold.
Dreg-drinkers have love perceptions
that reasonable men fiercely deny.
They say, we cannot go barefooted
in that courtyard. There is nothing but
thorns through there.
Love answers, The thorns are inside you.
Be silent, and pull what hurts
out of your loving’s foot.
Then you will see gardens
with secluded rose bowers,
and they will all be inside you.
Shams is the sun
obscured by this cloud of words.
Maybe he will burn the overcast off
and let love clear and brighten.
