17 Ordibehesht 1405
Quatrain 43 of 75
“The Grape that can with Logic absolute
The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute:
The subtle Alchemist that in a Trice
Life's leaden Metal into Gold transmute.”
Reflection · Spring 1405
Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects — the Persian tradition's shorthand for all religious argument, all the theological positions that have ever divided people who believed in the same God differently. Seventy-two positions, all incompatible, all certain, all confuted by the grape with a logic more absolute than any of them possess. The subtle Alchemist that in a Trice transmutes Life's leaden Metal into Gold — the grape is both the philosopher's stone and the alchemist.
In spring the alchemical work begins with the blossom: the leaden metal of winter is transmuted by the first warmth, the first green, the first taste of what the year intends. The sects are arguing about an afterlife while the actual life is doing something extraordinary outside the window.