Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

AWAKE! for Morning in the Bowl of Night

Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:

And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught

The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.

Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky
I heard a voice within the Tavern cry,
"Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup
Before Life's Liquor in its Cup be dry."

And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted -- "Open then the Door!
You know how little while we have to stay,
And, once departed, may return no more."

(Fitzgerald Translation)                  

Did I ever tell you about my friends Bob and Siggy? I had the honour of having Bob as my painting teacher at college for four years.

Bob and Siggy are artists.

Artists in that they are both amazing painters. Siggy has just been in shows in New York and Tuscany. She starts painting in her studio at 8 am and finishes at 2 am. Every day. She paints large paintings that seeth with her own personal iconography. Her icons, mysterious and animalistic, are to her paintings like the aphabet is to a writer.

Bob on the other hand is a draughtsman like no other. His pen and ink work is wonderous, his water colours are .... are ... ahh how do you describe a watercolour that in one passage has all the resilient glow and beauty of the best  of traditional water colour then suddenly slides off the paper into an abstract swirl of Turneresque etherealness....  Think Modigliani meets the fauvista Andre Deran. But better. 

It's silly trying to describe paintings eh? Maybe I should just say that the Queen of England has the good taste to have one of Bob's paintings in one of her palaces.

So what's this have to with the Rubaiyat?

Driving along the beach drive, on the way to dinner the other night, my friend Bob looks up at the night sky and sprouts the first verse of the Rubaiyat. Well how beautiful are those words eh? And I had never heard them spoken aloud. I, supposedly an educated man! Obviously I am not.

I was astounded. Speak that first verse aloud the next time you see the first star in the twilight sky and you'll see what I mean.

Though I did not deserve the honour, I'm proud to say that I was in a show with Bob and Siggy a few years ago. You can see some of my paintings from the show here  if you ever wondered what my traditional landscapes look like. There's some reviews at the bottom of this post.

I don't get a chance to brag much :) But as the next stanza suggests, life's short. Thank you for reading!

Whether at Naishapur or Babylon,

Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run,

The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop,

The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.