Silk Route

In the books of Rumi, you are a lover of leaving

Plucking the ecstatic strings

Of the rubabs of my grieving.

Let me hear the tinkling of your anklets

The exquisite sound of the beasts' bells

As they trudge into Samarkand.

Your soft hips are laden with riches,

I grip them as I would reams of silk

And other wonders of that ilk.

I look at the mounds on your chest

And I remember the blue domes nudging the sky.

I am Timur in your Registan

Only I will never reach my Hindustan.

In your eyes is my madrasah

Where I learnt the secrets of Bukhara.

Shirin, Shirin. I know I am only a traveller.

You will allow my solitary caravan rest in your sarai

Only for this night, for the Route is arduous.

In light of day, I will have to go

To govern with an iron hand and weak heart

For you have made me the satrap

Of the province of nothingness.

All of Persia calls me a modern day Farhad

Only our tongue has changed

In our tempered attraction

We speak today of investment and non-disclosure

But like the time when they would ride, glassy-eyed, to Ferghana

Our eyes still speak without speech, drink without lips.