Those birds outside your window at dawn
singing all at once fit to bust –
did you know they migrate from Islam
in the fighting season?
They’re all Sufis: they sleep all night
with the Beloved; and in the morning
they exchange the jokes they heard,
the pillow talk from the night before sleep;
then the blackbird and the thrush
weave these into stories which they sing
all day; then at night the nightingale
makes them all into one beautiful poem
about being intoxicated into song
by the wine of Shiraz; the rose-water wafers;
and how those who say
that one cannot be intoxicated
by the longing for the One
have proved themselves wrong
and proved the nightingale right
as you can know in yourself
when the nightingale sings of this
to the heart’s light pulsing in the stars.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
Ahhh This is just outstanding...you must be loving the birds a lot....the images have been weaved so purely...I loved each line of this fine composition..and above all I loved the way the birds were called Sufis..the intoxicating song of nightingale....its so deep within...a hearty ten for this.. Gul