You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.

brynhammond's profile picture

brynhammond 's review for:

Music of a Distant Drum: Classical Arabic, Persian, Turkish & Hebrew Poems by Abu'l-'Atahiya, Bernard Lewis, Yehuda HaLevi
4.0

With a caravan of cloths I left Sistan
with cloths spun from the heart, woven from the soul
cloths made of a silk which is called Word
cloths designed by an artist who is called Tongue
every stitch was drawn by force from the breast
every weft separated in torment from the heart.
These are not woven cloths like any cloth
do not judge them in the same way as others...
This is no cloth that can be spoilt by water
this is no cloth that can be damaged by fire
its colour is not destroyed by the earth's dust
nor its design effaced by the passing of time.


--Farrukhi (d.1037), native of Sistan, poet at the court of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna.