23 Mehr 1405
Quatrain 52 of 75
“And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop't we live and die,
Lift not thy hands to IT for help—for It
Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.”
Reflection · Autumn 1405
In autumn the inverted bowl begins to show its bowl-nature more clearly — the sky lowers, the color deepens toward the blue-gray of winter, the dome is more dome-like, more enclosing. IT rolls impotently on — the autumn sky is beautiful and indifferent and mechanical, turning toward winter by the same physics that turned it from winter toward spring. No help available. No appeal effective.
Khayyam looks at the autumn sky without prayer and without resentment. He measured it. He knows its size and its indifference. And under it, crawling coop'd, he found it beautiful anyway. The bowl is inverted. The help is not coming. The beauty is there.