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Ghazal 171
When I see Your Face, the stones start spinning!
You appear; all studying wanders.
I lose my place.
Water turns pearly.
Fire dies down and doesn't destroy.
In Your Presence I don't want what I thought
I wanted, those three little hanging lamps.
Inside Your Face the ancient manuscripts
seem like rusty mirrors.
You breathe; new shapes appear,
and the music of a Desire as widespread
as Spring begins to move
like a great wagon.
Drive slowly.
Some of us walking alongside
are lame!
Version by Coleman Barks
"Like This"
Maypop, 1990
When you show those rose-colored cheeks (of yours),
you cause the stones to whirl from joy!
Put your head out from the veil once again,
for the sake of astonished lovers--
So that knowledge may lose the way,
(and) the intellectual may shatter (his) learning;
So that water may become a pearl from your reflection,
(and) fire may quit war.
With (the presence of) your beauty, I don't desire the moon,
or those two or three little lanterns hanging (in the heavens).
With (the presence of) your face, I don't call
the ancient rusty sky a "mirror."
You breathed into and created this narrow world
once again in another form.
O Venus, make that harp melodious again,
in desire for his Mars-like eyes!
Translation by Ibrahim Gamard, 10/24/98
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