Cool blue dawn over an enclosed Shiraz rose-garden courtyard — crimson and blush rose beds, a tall dark cypress, orange-blossom trees…Framed through the tiled arch of the Beloved's door at soft morning: a young Shirazi lover in a plain saffron tunic pauses on the marble step, hand lifted to knock, longing on his face…Close on a young woman's hand laying three gold coins on the sunlit marble step before the shut door — the ransom asked to win the heart back — while overhead crimson roses spill in clear midday light…Roses at their peak bloom fill the courtyard, one blush-and-gold rose opened wider and more radiant than all the rest, glowing in dappled spring-green light through the orange-blossom leaves…The whole garden floods with transcendent white-gold light, the Beloved's radiance filling the courtyard, every rose and the dark cypress lit from within and the tiled arch of the door aglow…A copper lantern's warm glow beside an open hand-inked book of Persian verse in a small tiled niche at twilight, its light gentle but faint against the garden's fading radiance — faith's lamp…A dark rose-vine coils like a lock of hair up the tiled arch toward the Beloved's door at ember dusk, the only path through — the ring of your curls, unbelief the guide on love's road…Fine dust on the worn marble threshold of the Beloved's door under the last silver light of night, the garden hushed and roses closed for sleep — to be as dust at your door, humble and at peace…
