The Good Darkness

The Good Darkness
By Hakim Sanai
(1044? - 1150?)
English version by Coleman Barks

There is great joy in darkness.
Deepen it.

Blushing embarrassments

in the half-light

confuse,

but a scorched, blackened, face

can laugh like an Ethiopian,

or a candled moth,

coming closer to God.

Brighter than any moon, Bilal,

Muhammed's Black Friend,

shadowed him on the night journey.

Keep your deepest secret hidden

in the dark beneath daylight's

uncovering and night's spreading veil.

Whatever's given you by those two

is for your desires. They poison,

eventually. Deeper down, where your face

gets erased, where life-water runs silently,

there's a prison with no food and drink,

and no moral instruction, that opens on a garden

where there's only God. No self,

only the creation-word, BE.

You, listening to me, roll up the carpet

of time and space. Step beyond,

into the one word.

In blindness, receive what I say.

Take "There is no good..."

for your wealth and your strength.

Let "There is nothing..." be

a love-wisdom in your wine.

Poem's explanations by Ivan M. Granger.