As if bodies were the soul's ornaments,
A mullah turned the Koran's carpet page.
Old Babur made a couplet instead - of Age
and Youth, his 'throneless days,' their violence.
The opium pearl, to ease him out of life,
Made a garden of pain. The rugs, the tent
Dissolved. A flower still appeared. He went
On rearranging the couplet and devised,
To keep death at bay, five hundred and four
Versions. His first poem had been to a boy
From the bazaar whom for a day he had adored,
Whose glances he could still see in the dark
That lined the geometric border's void,
Reproduced in glistening egg-and-dart.
..
Each grain of sand
Takes an eternity to articulate
History's figure of speech for randomness.
J.D. McClatchy
The Rest of the Way
Kilim [fragments]
op. cit.
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