25 Aban 1404
Quatrain 9 of 75
“But come with old Khayyam, and leave the Lot
Of Kaikobad and Kaikhosru forgot:
Let Rustum lay about him as he will,
Or Hatim Tai cry Supper—heed them not.”
Reflection · Autumn 1404
In autumn this verse becomes a kind of grace. The heroes of summer — all the ambitions launched in Farvardin — are arriving at whatever result they arrive at. The crops are in. The wars are decided. The year has almost finished its epic, and old Khayyam is still on the strip of herbage, patient and amused by the whole thing.
Heed them not. Not because ambition is contemptible, but because their story is not your story. Khayyam had the friendship of viziers and the admiration of mathematicians across the known world, and he chose the strip of grass. Come with old Khayyam in autumn. The light is low and amber and the strip is still warm from the last of the summer, and there is nothing that needs to be conquered today.