How Can I Take Off My Eyes From Your Luminous Face? Part 2

I’ve cried so much that no tears are left
Even the count of the stars has exhausted
Let someone go and ask him why he has stopped visiting me?

The poet expresses his grief here. He says that I have waited for you for so long and you have not yet arrived. My eyes have dried up by the amount of tears that have flowed out of them in your remembrance. I am still waiting for you to come back my love. In the waiting process, I have been counting the stars and now even the stars have been completely counted by me, I do not have anything else to do now. Please someone go and ask why she is not coming to meet me.

O Graceful, come to me, I feel like exchanging glances with you
Come with your dazzling beauty I like to prostrate before you
I feel like dying today

The poet now says that enough is enough, I have the reached the limit of my patience today. Please come to me and exchange glances with me. I will admire your beauty and I know that it is indeed deadly. Even though I know it is deadly, I still want to witness your beauty. My time has come, I feel like dying today because of that. There is no better way of dying than that.

Come and undo your serpentine locks of hair
Inflict more wounds on those who are already wounded in love
Cut the distances, come close to me
Let’s reveal each other’s woes, as I desire

The poet is basically reiterating what he has said before, but this time in an immature way. Let’s cut the distances, let’s be one.

Rafique’s eternal prayer is to die at the
feet of the beloved
and when I open my eyes in the grave I want the beloved before me
To sit with you are my worship and never to leave your company because I see God in you
You are mine and I want to be yours eternally and if need be I’ll snatch you from the
Rest of the world

Rafique, the poet says that his ultimate goal is to die in the feet of his beloved. In Islam it is considered that when you die, you open your eyes for questioning and answering about the deeds you did in your life. That being said, he wants to open his eyes to his beloved because he only wants to answer questions asked by the beloved. I want to sit with you and I would consider it as an act of worship. You are mine and I am yours. We are meant for each other. Enough is enough return to me or else I will snatch you from the rest of the world and forever make you mine.

Now you have understood the profoundness in Sufi poetry. Now you know the pain and agony these people had whilst they wrote these pieces which even rhyme in Urdu. I leave you today with a  very special gift, the gift of Qawwali; the music of the Sufis.