20 Farvardin 1405
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 · Spring 1405
The caravanserai is a Persian institution: the roadside inn where travelers rest, where caravans stop and merchants exchange news, where the world in transit pauses before moving on. Khayyam calls it battered — worn by all the comings and goings, the doors alternating between night and day with the mechanical regularity of time itself. And every Sultan who arrived with his pomp stayed his hour or two, and left. Think about this. Apply the intelligence to the fact and see what understanding it produces.
In spring this verse is a cold shadow across a warm morning. The Sultan's hour or two in the caravanserai is your life in the world. The battered inn has seen everyone who has ever seemed permanent. They all went their way. The spring is not a reason to ignore this — it is a reason to be fully present in it, to inhabit your particular hour with the complete attention that any traveler should give to a good room and a warm night.