17 Bahman 1404
Quatrain 15 of 75
“And those who husbanded the Golden Grain,
And those who flung it to the Winds like Rain,
Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn'd
As, buried once, Men want dug up again.”
Reflection · Winter 1404
The earth is frozen. The grain — whether carefully stored or freely given — is either in the granary or in the ground. And Khayyam's point is most visible in winter: both the careful and the extravagant are now in the cold together, no distinction made by the frost. Buried once, men want dug up again — and they never are.
In winter, this verse is settling. A kind of rest from the argument between prudence and profligacy, between saving and spending, between the future you are building and the present you are living. Both arrive here. The grain is what it is. The field is sleeping under the frost. You are briefly, warmly, here.