Black Light by Galway Kinnell Page A

rustle and splashing, and a hollow, fluting music. He got up and followed the sound. At the edge of the ruins he came to a wide, shallow well. When he lowered his bucket many doves, which had been bathing, burst into the air. He drank in long gulps. He took off his clothes and poured cold water all over him.
    He came to a little mud house where some peasants were sitting in the shade and inquired of the road to Shiraz.
    â€œThat is the very road.”
    As Jamshid walked down the Shiraz road, he heard a car approaching. He stopped and faced it and signaled that he wanted a ride. It was big and shiny and two foreigners sat in the back seat. One pointed at him and they seemed to be laughing. For a long time Jamshid could see the car’s dust proceeding across the Mardasht plains, and hear its motor.
    Later in the day a melon truck came along. Jamshid hailed it and it stopped. Beside the driver sat the driver’s wife and children. “Get in the back,” the driver said. “You may sit on the melons but take care you don’t step on them.”
    Jamshid climbed on top of the truckload of green and white striped melons, and the truck set off. He felt around for a ripe one and broke it in pieces on the railing of the truck. In dripping handfuls he devoured it as he rode into the wind and across plains that were, suddenly, green and fertile.

chapter twelve chapter twelve
    I n Shiraz Jamshid washed the melon juice from his hands at a public tap, and made his way to the tomb of Hafez, near which he hoped to find Ali’s house. All he could do was tell Ali’s widow of the old man’s death, and the whereabouts of his remains.
    As for Hafez’ remains, these lay in a garden of quiet green pools, and ancient cypresses and dogwood trees. In the center of the garden, under a little canopy set on eight columns, was the coffin. It was made of stone and on its sides verses were cut. Jamshid wondered what they might say and wished now that he had learned to read. Everywhere were flowers and their reflections. No wonder, thought Jamshid, Ali had wanted to be buried in Shiraz. Here death seemed to be unblurred by darkness or pain. After ordinary life, it was like a step forward.
    As he stood at the coffin Jamshid noticed a yellow-faced old man beside him. Touching the coffin with one hand, the man seemed to be praying. Tears splashed from his closed eyes. From his pocket he drew out a volume of Hafez’ poems, opened it, and put down his finger. Jamshid saw the yellow face expand in a smile.
    â€œListen,” the man said, turning to Jamshid, “hear what Hafez has said to me: ‘Time stops not, take the Rose of Love in your arms.’ How is that for advice? Ah, Hafez. . . . It seems that he knows us, each of us, so well . . .”
    â€œBut, old man,” said Jamshid, for the man appeared to be close to a hundred, “what on earth can you do with advice like this, which is more fit for a boy of twenty?”
    Jamshid had only meant to be sensible but he saw he had offended the yellow-faced man. “What do you know of a man?” the fellow said. “At half my age you are already wizened. Look how pathetic and skinny you are.” He rattled Jamshid’s shoulder. “You think you can tell me what a man can do or cannot do. You look to me as if you’ve never seen the Rose of Love at all . . .”
    Jamshid was only too aware that, as far as he was concerned, the Rose of Love had never so much as blossomed but only budded and died. He started to defend himself. “Why just last night, by the dark of the moon . . .” But his long life mostly without love came back to him, and he tasted ashes. He was wizened and disgusting. So he would be until death, so he had been since birth. Or at least since he had turned back from that adventure outward with Varoosh. And there was no point in saying ‘until death’: in all important respects he had already died.