Dealers and Town-merchants

[Editor]

Dealers and Town-merchants
You are dealers and town-merchants. You don't know 1
what is gain and loss in the transactions of love, or 2
what is the price of the heart and the cost of dreams. 3
You will never know how one pays with one’s life, 4
how lovers can meet, how flowers can bloom, 5
why glances give in, why is there a breathtaking pause, 6
how new roads emerge on horizon, how conversations begin. 7
You won't understand the language of love. 8
You don’t feel the communion between lovers
You don’t understand the crazy state of lovers torn apart. 9
You don't admire beauty as a force of enchantment,
for you don't know the innermost core of love. 10
You are inflicted with the disease of expediency
You have faith in a calculated and rational remedy.* 11
You won't know when it is time to take a risk.* 12
You won't understand the connection
between wounds and fruition,.
between scars and a burning sensation, 13
between pain and affection.
You don't know what makes one weep. 14
You won't understand the wailing and the tears,
or the blisters of lovers who walk in a desert. 15
You don't understand the sighs and lamentations of love. 16
I know that you have deep appreciation for poetry. 17
It is the art and expression of a refined personality, 18
yet you choose a few words and hear a few sounds. 19
What connects the words with sounds, you won't learn. 20


Poet: Anonymous
Translator: Mabel Khawaja
*The poet is validating the definition of Sufism as a form of religious learning that reminds the seeker of knowledge about human limitations and the power of mystery behind Allah's will. Mysticism in Sufi literature illustrates how true knowledge transcends the traditional constraints of a strictly rational approach to the process of learning.
**"Rah-e-dinrihan" literally means the designated days for betting. In the context of this poem, betting represents the element of risk which is common to all forms of transactions, but for lovers it represents a moment of recognition and fearless submission to true love.







Source: Three Urdu poems, translated by Mabel Khawaja