You may be planning departure,
as a human soul leaves the world
taking almost all its sweetness with it.
You saddle your horse. You must be going.
Remember that you have friends here
as faithful as the grass and the sky.
Have I failed you? Possibly you are angry.
But remember our nights of conversation,
the well work, yellow roses by the ocean,
the longing, the archangel Gabriel
saying, So be it.
Shams Tabriz, your face
is what every religion tries to remember.
