10 Esfand 1404
Quatrain 37 of 75
“Ah, fill the Cup:—what boots it to repeat
How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:
Unborn TO-MORROW and dead YESTERDAY,
Why fret about them if TO-DAY be sweet!”
Reflection · Winter 1404
What boots it to repeat — in winter this question has an exhausted quality, the exhaustion of someone who has been repeating the fact of time's slipping all year and has finally arrived at the conclusion that the repetition was not the point. The point was always the cup. If to-day be sweet — winter today is a different sweetness. Not warm, not abundant. The warmth of a fire, the sweetness of a good meal, the particular quality of a conversation in a winter room.
Fill the cup. Khayyam is not asking you to pretend winter is summer. He is asking you to find what is sweet in the exact season you are in. The dead yesterday and unborn tomorrow are equally unavailable in Dey as they were in Mordad. Between them: this winter day. Here. What sweetness is in it?