The Question And The Answer Poem by Mystic Qalandar

I said to the leaping mountain stream—
wanderer born of a hidden source—
do you remember your secret arising?
Do you still dream of the silence
of the unseen sea?
Tell me—
have you discovered the ultimate truth
of your journey toward the unknown?

A silver wave rose from the depths
of its uproar and replied:
I am only the sea's resonant voice of silence.
The Source calls me onward.
I cannot linger
among questions and speculations,
for I spring from eternity's womb,
and eternity sings within my melodies,
while eternity awaits me
beyond the next bend.

Then I grasped the robe
of the gentle spring sun
and felt the scorching heat of summer
upon my frozen glacial body.

Messenger between worlds,
breath of the unseen Beloved,
pause within your sacred haste.
Whisper to me the mystery
of remaining connected to the Source
at both beginning and end.

The sun smiled
through its golden radiance and answered:
It is the sea that laughs through me
in blossoming orchards and rose gardens.
Loosen your bond with reason, questioner.
I am entrusted with awakening sleeping seeds.
I must scatter the dreamer's dreams
into flowers and thorns,
into plants and verdant growth,
into Earth's waiting lap.
And it is the sea that scatters as fragrance.

Then I turned to the moth and said:
Mad lover of annihilating light,
pilgrim of luminous ruin,
you who circle the altar of disappearance,
pause a moment and reveal the secret
of your martyrdom to the burning flame.

The moth trembled with ecstatic longing.
Spiraling inward,
he entered the sacred fire and cried:
There is no time for answers.
The Beloved burns through me
at the altar of Its own fire.
I do not long to become the flame—
I am the flame itself in the guise of a moth.
The question, the questioner, and the questioned
are but one.

At last I beheld a star moving
along its appointed path,
a solitary traveler crossing
the vast contours of heaven.
I called to it:
O radiant wanderer
upon the crystal floor of infinity,
have you contemplated the fire within you—
the hidden brilliance that guides your journey
along the fixed orbit of existence?

The star shuddered in its descent.
With a sigh older than worlds, it answered:
I am singing the song of my origin.
I know only this:
A divine and infinite energy moves
through me.
You call it divine.
I call it the Transcendent Being
who manifests Himself
through countless disguises of form.

And I stood alone
beneath the canopy of heaven
as the river rushed onward,
as the sun melted glaciers,
as streams brought forth hidden treasures—
orchards, rose gardens, plants, and verdant growth.
The moth loved the light unto the end.
The star remained a witness, a sign of the unseen.

All had answered my question.
Yet within their answers
a deeper voice began to echo:

Real is the whole manifestation.
Real is the immanent and the transcendent.

Then silence opened like a hidden door.
And in that silence,
the question
and the answer
both dissolved.

— MyKoul