These Poems

Greet these poems as you would greet at your tent-flap a wise man come from far; drink with him a cup of wine that tastes like the memory of roses; then sit and eat with him as the evening falls by the flickering flames, under a canopy of desert stars, remembering great men and great deeds; feeling your backbone tall with their memory; recall lines of poetry which have crept into your heart like your faithful hunting-hound, sprawled with a long sigh beside the fire; and look around at the glowing embers catching with their light, the shining eyes of your companions cross-legged in a circle, rejoicing in their hearts at a fortune which is theirs so great that they can only sit in silence and become a stillness beyond time. * Freely adapted from Ibn Qutayba’s 9th-century book on literature.