16 Mordad 1405
Quatrain 58 of 75
“Oh Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make,
And who with Eden didst devise the Snake;
For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man
Is blacken'd, Man's Forgiveness give—and take!”
Reflection · Summer 1405
In summer the Sin wherewith the Face of Man is blackened has had six months to accumulate. The summer ledger is longer than the spring's. And Khayyam maintains: give and take. Both directions. The accounting goes both ways. The Snake in Eden devised by God — in summer this is the heat of the year, the thing that has caused most of the year's falls and complications. The snake is built in.
For all the Sin — the summer's sins are specific and numerous. Khayyam asks not for their erasure but for their forgiveness. And offers the same, in the same breath. We have all done what we were made to do. Let's be honest about it and move on.