BY THE RIVER

When I love it is not with a ray of the Infinite Love.
I run through a world that is slowly losing its meaning,
searching for my summer heart.
Why do I love what fades?

I can see the beginnings of the sun’s descent upon the horizon;
I can see its light playing in the trees.
I feel I must end my walk in this garden
because I cannot truly understand its beauty.

If anyone needs seclusion, it is I; if anyone needs a pyre, it is I.
Voices. Voices. At the unworthy hour on the unholy day,
I feel the intense grace that gushes forth from the rocks.
Where is my flaming sword?

The ancient tree before me speaks, would that I could hear its words;
the leaves sing, would that I could hear their melody.
In a self-inflicted exile, I discover that I have
clipped my own wings, and cry out for an end.

The cry of my voice
lights the flame in which I burn.
I expect to be a pile of ash when morning comes.
I awake with an unworthy glow.

My heart is moved with great tenderness as I circle round the holy House.
It is at once a devoted voice and a remorse for existing.
When will my ship arrive to take me away?
How long can I hold you and look at you to keep you from crying?

Standing with arms wide open at dawn, I wonder when the cry
of Yá Bahá’u’l-Abhá will well up from within me.
When will I feel that yearning
for the limbs of my body to be scattered in the dust?

When will the Majnún inside of me surface—
when will I no longer be blind to all things in which my Beloved dwells?
When will I become as the stone
whose goal is to find the bottom of the river?

The only mutiny that brews, brews inside of me.
I ready myself for battle when there are no bombs of war.
When the flood calls, will I cling to the rocks?
Will I again lament beneath the sobbing tree?

My dark forces tremble through me without plaint.
Without a sigh, I walk coldly passed all things.
There is a mystery voiced by the river, a summons to absent friends.
O, would that I could have been present on that day!

I can almost hear my grave calling me,
remembering all that has been.
Humbled, I stand at the entrance
of my lovely invisible garden as nightingales sing.

Though I am the cause of my own blindness, I can still see Thee!
Though I extinguish my own voice, my prayers are still heard!
Though my ears burn because of me, I still hear Thee!
The ashes of my heart and the dust of my body still rise to Thee!

(10 May 2005)