23 Aban 1404
Quatrain 7 of 75
“Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly—and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.”
Reflection · Autumn 1404
Read this verse in autumn and you feel the truth of the Bird differently. In spring the Bird is full of implication — all the distance it has to fly, the whole year ahead. In autumn you can see where it has been. The flight is shorter than it looked from the spring equinox. The cup you were going to fill — how full is it?
The Winter Garment of Repentance is already assembling itself in the Mehr air. You can feel the pull toward it, toward the sobriety and accounting that autumn encourages. Khayyam is not telling you to resist autumn's temperament; he is telling you not to let it arrive before it needs to. Not yet. The Bird is still on the wing. Fill the cup with what this season offers — the amber light, the last warmth, the particular beauty of things that are almost over.