The Perfect Arc Part One

Kais! Kais! Do you know who you are? Do you know at least where you are? You are standing on a ridge overlooking a cliff. A few careless steps and you will trip, falling to rock-covered shoreline below. You can't go on. You must change direction. Will you stay in this one place, and let nature batter you through seasons of cold and heat, scarcity and plenty? You have entered a wasteland, you have become an unthinking dweller in wilderness. Kais, is this hapless figure before me really you? Haunted by loss, bereft of family, torn by impossible desires, you are dying from the inside out. You are gaunt and speechless, the bloom of your youth has withered, your former beauty vanished like the final decay of a once resplendent rose. I am your loving elder brother, Kais, and your silence breaks my heart. Is there not left within you some flame which radiates your identity? Reminds you of your duty to our parents and our tribe? Rumors abound that a mere woman has reduced you to this... I can give you a harem of women who will smother her memory. Why is this woman so particular to you? Step backward, Kais, and take my hand. (This poem is the first in a series of poems which will be a MAJNUN AND LAYLA REDUX.)