Imra' ul Qays

Imra' ul Qays

Imra’u ‘l-Qays, king of the Arabs, 

was very handsome and a poet full of love songs.
Women loved him desperately. Everyone loved him,

 but there came one night an experience 

that changed him completely.
He left his kingdom and his family. 

He put on dervish robes and wandered 

from one weather, one landscape, to another.
Love dissolved his king-self and led him to Tabuk,

 where he worked for a time making bricks.
Someone told the king of Tabuk about Imra’u ‘l-Qays, 

and that king came to visit him at night.
“King of the Arabs, handsome Joseph of this age,

 ruler of two empires, one composed of territories,

 and the other of the beauty of women,
if you would consent to stay with me, I would be honored. 

You abandon kingdoms, because you want more than kingdoms.”
The king of Tabuk went on like this,

 praising Imra’u ‘l-Qays and talking theology and philosophy.
Imra’u ‘l-Qays kept silent. Then suddenly 

he leaned and whispered something in the second king’s ear, 

and that second king became a wild wanderer too.
They walked out of town hand in hand,
no royal belts, no thrones.
This is what love does and continues to do. 

It tastes like honey to adults and milk to children.
Love is the last thirty-pound bale. 

When you load it on, the boat tips over.
So they wandered around China 

like birds pecking at bits of grain.

  They rarely spoke 

because of the dangerous 

seriousness of the secret they knew.
That love-secret spoken pleasantly, or irritation,

 severs a hundred thousand heads in one swing.
A love-lion grazes in the soul’s pasture,

 while the scimitar of this secret approaches. 

It’s a killing better than any living.
All that world-power wants, really, is this weakness.
So these kings talk in low tones, and carefully.

 Only God knows what they say.
They use unsayable words. Bird language. 

But some people have imitated them, 

learned a few birdcalls, and gotten prestigious.

From Book of Love

by Coleman Barks