fana

It's become difficult to write of things you do not know. Who are you, who am I? Not easy to speak above the silence, utter more than the necessary. In former times you could be burned alive for what you said. Speaking carries no such weight now. That's true. But still there are words that are like flames, that make me seek out annihilation.

Each ego preserves its individual force, but if we want to attain perfection, the self must be annihilated-just as religious fanatics annihilate themselves in the face of the divine.

I fell asleep. Forgive me. Unfaithful, renouncing my heart, my city, like a bird that dreamt of a star and open blue skies.When I awoke I dreamt I was somewhere else, not quite myself. Led down brilliant white streets in Cordoba by the memory of you, my own forgetfulness, the deep lustre of your eyes. The whole world was in flower, and you were the soul of the world. Or some unknown street in Buenos Aries, stumbling to speak the word. In Bukhara, where potato means plum, and darkness falls around me, close to the hat bazaar. I am lost in every city, but there I saw you, and became someone else.