PERSIAN FRAGMENT

Posted by Admin on 27 June 2006, 12:00 am

Tea? A final glass, and then a deal to settle:
our loquacity, a subtle word-play, casting
eastern-wise, a test of patience, proof of mettle,
long in search of compromise, a mid-point lasting,
fixed between thy perigee and my own vendor’s
optimism. What now! A scrutiny for fading?
Dost not know thine eye a sharper service renders
than thy wisdom? By the Prophet’s beard, my trading
code allows no achromasia: perfection
rests, I fear, on locative effects – nomadic
hazards. Friend, the flaw thou seest defies detection:
in it I perceive the fortune, poor, sporadic,
of my people. Lo, the dye-change tells their story –
tribal movement, hill-plain-hill, a desert shuttle:
camels, goats, and hooded women, migratory.
Spread it. There the Persian past, I scorn rebuttal,
lives on. Royal splendour: many colours losing
strict identity in depth abnormal. Umber,
soft and rich; a deep alizarin diffusing
warmth; the hyacinthine patterns. Mark the number
there of knots an inch. Thou hast. A shrewd one choosing
merchandise! Agreed? A blessing on thy slumber.