10 Azar 1404
Quatrain 24 of 75
“Alike for those who for TO-DAY prepare,
And those that after a TO-MORROW stare,
A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries
"Fools! your Reward is neither Here nor There."”
Reflection · Autumn 1404
In autumn the Tower of Darkness is fully visible again. The light is going, the days shortening, and the Muezzin's cry has the credibility that only comes with the season's permission. Neither here nor there — autumn makes this land with its full weight. The rewards promised in spring have arrived or not arrived, and in either case there is a gap between what was imagined and what is.
But something is here. Khayyam always leaves this opening — the actual autumn day, the actual amber light, the actual cup in hand. The reward of the imagined kind does not exist. The fact of being here, in autumn, aware of the darkness and the light — this is the thing the Muezzin is pointing at by negation.