Rubaiyat Of Timing After Edward Fitzgerald Poem by Jonathan ROBIN

Pride comes before the fall, all far and wide
are well aware their dreams Fate sets aside
when overconfidence will weakness prime
to turn Time’s tables, undo from inside.

But what to Time is ‘inside’ or is ‘out’?
for Time’s dimension both can do without ~
the signpost sen may blow now east now west,
crow heeds no fixed road stop sign roundabout.

Be wary of presumption, stretching luck,
too few are called where most, lame, come unstuck,
identify the slipstream tipping crown,
to spin drown in the cyclone vortex suck.

‘Festina lente’, ‘hasten slowly’, ~ Fate
may be amused when we anticipate
the way the dice is rolled a turn or two,
but turns the guilty temptor from gilt gate.

Trust intuition, ~ method leads astray
where narrow will or shallow leads the way, ~
but channelled energy may help create,
not barter aim in mind for fame today.

Creation seeks new ways to stimulate,
to challenge stale traditions’ weary weight, ~
meet rendezvous with time and greet the runes
ignoring jigsaw mind-set’s zigzag gait.

Contract a link between ‘pretend’ ‘extend’,
where end to means is never means to end,
where current flow is re...volts and study churn ~
though true solutions may seem round the bend.

Invention is extension catalyzed,
or role reversal, vistas reapprized,
what complicated seemed is later seen
as simple step towards a goal disguised.

Extension is an option exercized
which counts or counters process organized, ~
play with the flow, go tack against tides tight,
examples sample, straight lines exorcized.

Some words were changed in the two stanzas which
proceded this, the argument to stitch, ~
however phrased ‘Invent’, ‘Create’, refuse
same overviews through game of toss and pitch.

As innovation themes explores, sends shoots,
to test fond dreams beyond both ‘right’, ‘wrong’ roots,
the rout seems open, ready, preprepared
by Past and Future playing in cahoots.

Though rhyme and reason often are withheld
till time and season pass, their winter knelled,
true timing is essential where the mind
would tap the forces from tomorrow welled.

Who would evolve must choose from many doors,
each offers either fame or blame, doom draws,
each offers health or wealth, advance or pause,
must think the link between effect and cause.

What fame is, what is doom, though, who foresees?
What choice reject, what opportunities
take for, or take as, granted, who can tell?
Time twists or undertows the flows men seize.

What matters and to whom? What gravities
apply when anti-mater equals tease? –
conundrums which a life-long paradox
entertains until all memories

are atomised upon a karmic breeze,
blown willy-nilly till, like honeyed bees,
they bumble on towards a homely hive,
they stumble on till patterns by degrees

from angles wide frame focus, offer keys.
For who between the lines can read, chalk, cheese,
discerns – the waft and weft of substance – learns
to draw the line dividing wood from trees.

So grasp the moving finger as it writes,
wait not on Time, tune tide to timing – flights
of fancy twin with opportunity
which may not seed again. Feed dreams’ delights!


16 June 1999 robi3_0529 after Edward Fitzgerald – Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam