18 Bahman 1404
Quatrain 16 of 75
“Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai
Whose Doorways are alternate Night and Day,
How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp
Abode his Hour or two, and went his way.”
Reflection · Winter 1404
In winter the caravanserai verse is its own environment. The battered inn is cold, the doorways cycling through the long night sides of their rotation. You are a winter traveler, stopped at the inn not from choice but from necessity, because the road is cold and the night is long. The inn abides. It has held everyone — the spring sultans in their pomp, the summer traders in their abundance, and now you, in winter, brief and real.
Khayyam does not offer false warmth. He offers company — the company of the fact, the knowledge that everyone you have ever admired also stopped here, also left. The doorways alternate. The night lasts longer than you would like. The hour or two is shorter than it seemed when you arrived. The battered walls have held warmer and colder than this. They will hold you too.