Why Didn't I Turn to Ashes
Why Didn't I Turn to Ashes - form Summary
Ghazal Couplets Drive the Turn
This poem is a ghazal: a series of autonomous couplets voiced by a single speaker whose repeated concerns—jealousy, burning desire, wine, and the pleasure of pain—recur in varying images. Rather than a linear narrative, each couplet offers a self-contained declaration or paradox, shifting tone between lament, ironic wit, and acceptance. The ghazal form allows abrupt turns and juxtaposition of erotic suffering, mock commerce, and spiritual gestures, so the piece reads as episodic meditations unified by a persistent voice and recurring motifs rather than a conventional plot.
Read Complete AnalysesWhy didn't I turn to ashes seeing her face so glowing, bright, by envy now I am inflamed, at strength of my on sight. A worshipper of fire thus they all hold me to be watching me spout fiery sighs of sorrow zealously. What dignity in love would be, if torturer's commonplace I hesitate, you when I see, dispensing it apace. She comes to slay me but it is, the heat of jealousy which kills me when I see she holds the blade caressingly. The blood of innocents upon the flask's neck proved to be, wine quvers when it sees you float, intoxicatingly. Alas! That my beloved did from torture then refrain, when she beheld me craving for deliciousness of pain. I can be sold alongside with my wares of poetry, if taste the buyer does possess and sensibility. Put on the holy thread and break the beaded rosary, for travelers do take the path that smooth appears to be. These blisters on my feet were cause of great concern to me, but gladdened is my heart for thorns there in the path to see. On peeping in my mirror how distrustful can she be, thinks that the green patina is a parrot's effigy. Instead of falling on the mount, the bolt should have stuck me, for wine should be served as per the drinker's capacity. His busting of his head those days, in state of lunacy, now when I see you will it all comes back to memory.
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