12 Bahman 1404
Quatrain 10 of 75
“With me along some Strip of Herbage strown
That just divides the desert from the sown,
Where name of Slave and Sultan scarce is known,
And pity Sultan Mahmud on his Throne.”
Reflection · Winter 1404
In winter the strip of herbage is frost-stiffened and pale. Khayyam still leads you here, in Dey and Bahman, not because it is comfortable but because the logic of it holds in every season: this is the place where the name of Slave and Sultan barely reaches.
There is a particular winter clarity to the strip. Summer makes it lush and inviting; winter strips it to its essence, and what remains is the simple fact of a margin, a place of not-belonging-to-either, a rest from the binary of servant and master. Pity Sultan Mahmud in winter especially — his throne is cold and heavy and the weight of all those names presses harder when the sky is gray and the year is old. The strip is free. The frost is survivable.