To each people has there turned a guide ____ Quratulain Tahira _____ AKSHR

To each people has there turned a guide

The [point of the] worship [which] they indicate is you. 

 

From you the cause of God has become exalted ---- Quratulain Tahira ____ AKSHR

From you the cause of God has become exalted

The majesty of gods have become manifest. 

 

Hidden from all ----- Rumi ---- AKSHR

 

Hidden from all

I will speak to you without words.

No one but you will hear my story

Even if I tell it in the middle of the crowd. 

TRANSITION – M. ATHAR TAHIR -- AKSHR

 

It would be picturesque to go

Against a marigold sky up in smoke

With glee-inflamed logs, a Brahmin’s heedless

Mantra and stench-killing incense.

 

So release oneself

To another incarnation, to be cast

In a final handful to

A river clogged with washed out sins.

 

Or one could slide into

An incinerator and come out packed

In a box, to be forgotten in an attic

Or disposed hurriedly of in a plot.

 

It would be colorful to go

Gonged down long streets with wailing

Relatives in sacks and gaudy paper houses,

Cardboard cars by the yard

 

And money in wads,

Paper pagodas to light joss-sticks in,

And all luxuries

Fire could burn to another world.

To be left for vultures to pick

At leisure, leaving only

A shovel full of bones on the tower

Would be silent perpetuation.

Or one could credit All to an archaeologist.

For millennium’s stand almost like oneself,

Painted, attended, surrounded by serpent richness.

 

But the cleanest, cheapest way

Is to be buried where nothing irks,

Where grass covers, the berry sends

Down roots and the worm world works.

My Luve Is Like A Red Red Rose by Robert Burns ____ AKSHR

“O, my luve’s like a red, red rose, 

That’s newly sprung in June.”

 

Love In The Time Of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez ---- AKSHR

“I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century, 

to repeat to you once again my vow of eternal fidelity and everlasting love.”

 

The Portrait Of A Lady by Henry James ---- AKSHR

It has made me better loving you …

 it has made me wiser, and easier, and brighter.

I used to want a great many things before, 

and to be angry that I did not have them.

Theoretically, I was satisfied.

 I flattered myself that I had limited my wants.

But I was subject to irritation; 

I used to have morbid sterile hateful fits of hunger, of desire.

Now I really am satisfied, 

because I can’t think of anything better.”

The Portrait Of A Lady by Henry James