‘this Is What It Is And Is Not What It Is Not' Poem by Sadiqullah Khan

This was a difficult composition.
You know that Fihi ma fihi is Rumi's book,
and means 'It is what it is'
so the reference to the teacher.
I had once written about my book,
as ‘This is what it is and is not what it is not'.
For a while I felt it too realistic.
And so is putting words on fire.
'I have put all my loves there,
I have put words on fire'.
The next is reference to Shams Tabriz,
unlettered, although he was very literate.
An iconoclast and a cynic (cynic according to R. A. Nicholson) .
When Shams was being initiated into his spiritual path,
one of his teachers had remarked
that ‘Put him aside like a log, so that he catches fire himself'.
The deeper sea, and coming out with ‘own sky',
is again Shams Tabriz.
The last two stanzas are Shams Tabriz's dialogue
with a theologian, who was looking down
to see the reflection of sun. The end sums up
‘the moon in the palm', as the state of elation.

-Explaining the poem This Indeed Is.

Courtesy: Kanwal Amjad

Sadiqullah Khan
Islamabad
May 29,2014.

Shams Tabrizi @ silencio pensamiento y voz