Quatrain 28
Quatrain 28 of 75
“With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with my own hand labour'd it to grow:
And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd—
"I came like Water, and like Wind I go."”
Reflection · Autumn
I came like Water, and like Wind I go. This is the harvest of a lifetime of inquiry — seven words that hold everything Khayyam learned from the doctors and saints and his own long nights with the stars. Water: arrived unbidden, taking the shape of whatever receives it. Wind: departs without being asked, to somewhere, in a direction it did not choose. The harvest is small and immense simultaneously.
Laboured it to grow — Khayyam did not arrive at this harvest lazily. He sowed the seed of wisdom with his own hand, worked the field with the rigor of a mathematician. And this — this water, this wind — is what grew. The field was well-worked. The harvest is honest. Not every harvest of hard work is large.