With all my soul I search and seek
My environ my eyes do trick
Where is it gone? Why is it missed?
Nowhere to be found in this earthly feast
In every direction I glance and peek
Yet its signs to me don’t speak
O pious men, where is that beauty
That like a candle glows in duty.
Affirm that name, whoever thus repeat
To him even death will taste soft & sweet
Whoever once that face has kissed
His bones are blessed in gravely mist.
Which do I praise? That face or hair?
Whom both worlds enslave and spare.
No wonder the earth falls out of sight
Love transmutes all to celestial light.
Praise Shams-e Tabrizi far and wide
From seekers his face do not hide.

Ó Shahriar Shahriari
Vancouver, Canada
June 15, 1998