4.7 - Comments on the Opening Poem

“He saw the lightning eastward, thus he longed for the east.

If he had seen it westward, he would be longing for the west.

My desire is for the lightning and its gleam, and not for the places or grounds.

The East zephyr narrated after them, a hadith handed down successively: from heartache, from my passion, from anguish, from my tribulation,

from rapture, from my reason, from yearning, from ardor, from tears, from my eyelid, from fire, from my heart:

that he whom you love resides between your ribs; the breaths toss him from side to side.

I said: Bring a message to him and say that he is the enkindler of the fire within my heart.

If it shall be quenched, then everlasting union, but if it shall burn, thus no blame to the lover!