28 Farvardin 1405
Quatrain 24 of 75
“Alike for those who for TO-DAY prepare,
And those that after a TO-MORROW stare,
A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries
"Fools! your Reward is neither Here nor There."”
Reflection · Spring 1405
Heard in spring, the Muezzin's cry is a cold wind from the north through all the warmth and opening. But Khayyam insists on it: the one who is preparing for today, filling the cup and flinging the winter garment, is told fools alongside the one staring after tomorrow. Neither strategy earns the imagined reward. You fill the cup not because it yields a reward but because it is what the cup is for and what spring is for. The reward is not the reason. The spring morning is the reason.
The Muezzin calls from darkness into the bright spring morning. Neither here nor there — and yet here, right now, is the spring morning. It doesn't require the reward to exist. It is already existing.