Realizing the ever-growing scope of mystery and intrigue in your working,
We somehow felt that resurrection itself has been requisitioned for your service.
Intellect is befuddled, and consciousness is in a whirl!
The sanguine panorama of your innocent eyes would even try the patience of Job!
And would put to shame my claim of being a diehard!
Often, you have played the game of construction and destruction.
No sooner we felt settled, there was unsettlement!
The breeze of destruction, however, was never so strong as on this occasion.
It seems the present game implies perfect destruction.
My anxious mind is perturbed with this thought alone.
Let this end prove to be the beginning of the end, if there is any!
The school of Love for years underwent a routine course.
What seized you to change so suddenly the curriculum so drastically?
Mere words can never remove the age-long rust of temperament and nature
When it is a problem even for advanced souls.
Our life as a whole was too full of examinations.
Would it be too much to wish if you had ordered exemptions and an eternal vacation?
For years, we were praying for the safety of the Tavern [God].
In the Tavern we prayed for the long life of the Saki [Master].
The latest decree, however, enjoins upon us to forget both the Tavern and the Saki!
Now there is no go for us but to pray for the safety of the wineglass [individual Self].
The ship [God] and the captain [Master] have both become strangers!
Come to your senses, O Traveler! Who remains now to care for you?
Finish up this rigmarole, O Munsiff! Your sorry tale is the tale of every one of us!
We, nevertheless, give you credit for plain-speaking.
All the same, we congratulate your correct decision.
If the Beloved is determined to ride the clouds of self-glorification,
The lover also should reply by riding the sure steed of surrender and resignation!
Saki's Reply to the Jeremiad
By Ahmed Abbas Khak
Inmates of the Tavern! Do you know whose is the wailing note today?
The voice evidently is of one of our chronic beneficiaries!
Let him know that the Tavern is open eternally on one condition alone:
That the secret of the Tavern must not go out of the Tavern!
How dare he complain about the tyranny of the Saki!
Can he truly say that the Wine Eternal has not benefited him at all?