Whatever I have come to

And wherever I find myself, Shukriya

In sun's and moon's radiance

I am recognising your face

In every song I am hearing

Your voice

In every beauty I am seeing

Your beauty's reflection

For ever yours, gladly enslaved

By your eyes

 

You have claimed my soul

For the duration of one breath

I have dwelled in Paradise

Still alive

But dead, ya Mawlat, dead

Ever after

By Allah:

How could I ever have forgotten?

I can forget my life but never

Can I forget Shukriya

 

As time went by

My love grew its roots

In waters, soil and skies

In every star I see

Your eyes

And time is a sleepless river

Unmoving

Your and my shadow meet

In its static reflection

As life flies

 

In thousand questions I was asked:

What is faith?

I say:

What is the notion of fire

To those who are burnt up

And to those

Who are burning;

What can Shukriya be to anyone who does not know her?

Love cannot be taught

Nor can yearning

 

What can the pilgrimage be

To me who has seen Shukriya?

Though it is true that Shukriya

Is not God,

She is not different from HIM

Hers was the gift of absolute devotion

And the secret of absolute devotion is

What she taught me

A living image of that which has no image,

My spirit's destiny

 

By distance we are separated

Separated as my spirit is from its source by distances

Death only can

Overcome

Which makes death desirable

And sweet,

A separation yet, 

Shukriya

That can never be

Complete

 

Everything in this world

Is faulty

Save the one my heart loves

The prophets' manner and appearance

Preserved in Shukriya's heart

O precious secret preserved in the heart of a woman

Who still lives

Within me

And though she is hiding from what I've become

She is my sole reality

 

To the Beloved everything must be

Sacrificed

Even love itself

On the altar of our burning souls time and distance

Are the first two veils to fall

No one knows God but God alone

YOU are the Truth that lives in ME

Of the law and the wisdom I studied all life

My heart knows nothing

At all

 

(Ya ahla ayatu'l haqq al farid

'Arafta'l hubb ya qalbi

Sharabt ar-ruhh men 'aynek

Mawlat, hamamatu'l Bustan

Ya mirayat nafsi'l sharid

Fainek?

Ma li tanza wa ma li rahim

Men dan jamalek fi zihrhu'l karim

Ya ahada-sh-shahida

'Ala su'ali wa bali

La jawabat wa la haqq illa hubbek wallah

Wa la hal illa hali w'ahwali)