I want to reach over and move you so your smoky odor of crushed grape cannot drift around me, but I cannot stop watching the smear of candlelight reflected on your ruby belly, bright as the hourglass marking the black widow I killed in my toolshed this summer. Once I loved your mystery uncoiling on my tongue, the dark and gleaming veins you opened there. And I loved your earthy cousin, beer, the one who bears the brassy accent of wheatfields, and your sullen friends bourbon, scotch, and rum who might end the party singing sad Irish songs or smashing furniture and beating the host. But what I loved, finally, was the blackness you brought, the stars dying one by one. I kissed you good-bye long ago. Still, when I see mouths purse with meeting you, see the dim coal of an eye suddenly waken, I recall your first kindlings, blood-glow I could believe for the length of your burning

Have a Mind That Is Open to Everything and Attached to Nothing

Don't Die with Your Music Still in You

You Can't Give Away What You Don't Have

Embrace Silence

Give Up Your Personal History

You Can't Solve a Problem with the Same Mind That Created It

There Are No Justified Resentments

Treat Yourself As If You Already Are What You'd Like to Be

Treasure Your Divinity

Wisdom Is Avoiding All Thoughts That Weaken You

That which then was ours, my love, don't ask me for that love again. The world then was gold, burnished with light -- and only because of you. That's what I had believed. How could one weep for sorrows other than yours? How could one have any sorrow but the one you gave? So what were these protests, these rumors of injustice? A glimpse of your face was evidence of springtime. The sky, wherever I looked, was nothing but your eyes. If You'd fall into my arms, Fate would be helpless. All this I'd thought, all this I'd believed. But there were other sorrows, comforts other than love. The rich had cast their spell on history: dark centuries had been embroidered on brocades and silks. Bitter threads began to unravel before me as I went into alleys and in open markets saw bodies plastered with ash, bathed in blood. I saw them sold and bought, again and again. This too deserves attention. I can't help but look back when I return from those alleys --what should one do? And you still are so ravishing --what should I do? There are other sorrows in this world, comforts other than love. Don't ask me, my love, for that love again.

Translated by Agha Shahid Ali