19 Farvardin 1405
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 · Spring 1405
In spring the choice between husbanding and flinging is fresh and unresolved — the grain is in hand, the field is open, everything is possible. Khayyam does not tell you which to choose. He tells you the outcome is the same and leaves you to decide on other grounds. On other grounds: joy, inclination, the particular quality of your nature, what you actually want from the time you have. The careful one and the extravagant one both become earth.
This is not nihilism. It is freedom. Khayyam is releasing you from the tyranny of the outcome by telling you the outcome in advance. Now choose how you want to live the journey, unclouded by illusions about where the two roads lead. The spring choice between husbanding and flinging is yours to make — made on the right grounds, which are grounds of pleasure and character, not grounds of outcome.