O heart, go. Go.
Turn to blood like you used to be.
Go to the valley and plain where you used to be.
Why are you rolling over the dirt of existence?
Go to the furnace and brazier where you used to be.
How long will you be staying in this
what-has-happened-what-will-be-happening world?
Go to the land of Absence where you used to be.
Why do you try to turn the water wheel?
You are not an ox.
Ascend to the wheel of the sky where you used to be.
In this pasture, you look like someone with indigestion.
Go. Reach immortality where you used to be.
Why do you become dependent on the medicines of Plato?
For Plato, that’s what you used to be.
O one who sits alone, why do you stay in captivity?
Become a sultan, a baron again where you used to be.
Your bronzed body is a disaster for you.
You were the soul to Feridun.*
Go. Be like that again where you used to be.
Find the eminence and glory you experienced before.
Turn it into the auspicious fortune like you used to be.
Quit arranging pearls.
Be a secret pearl in the ocean.
That’s where you used to be.
*Feridun A symbol of victory, justice, and generosity in Persian literature.
Divan-i Kebir, Volume 19, Ghazal 231, verses 2362-2371, pages 54-55.