A Night of Life Slips Away

 

  بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

Abu Saʿid Abul-Khayr (967–1049) was a Persian Sufi teacher and poet from Mayhana in Khorasan (in today’s Turkmenistan). He’s remembered less for formal scholarship and more for a lived spirituality grounded in love, humility, and service—turning everyday moments (like dawn and a rooster’s cry) into reminders of awakening. Many short mystical verses—especially rubāʿī (quatrains)—are linked to his name, though scholars note that not every poem attributed to him can be pinned down with certainty. What remains clear is his lasting influence: he helped shape a Persian poetic voice where devotion is intimate, direct, and morally bracing.

This quatrain of his serves as a wake-up call: 

هنگام سپیده‌دم خروس سحری
دانی که چرا همی کند نوحه‌گری؟

At first light the rooster laments like a mourner
Do you know why it cries out like that?
Explanation
“سپیده‌دم” (daybreak) is the threshold moment: darkness has not fully left, light has not fully arrived. In Persian mystical poetry, that in-between time is charged—good for waking, prayer, reckoning, and truth-telling.
“خروس سحری” is literally the rooster of sahar (pre-dawn). Sahar carries spiritual weight: the hour of wakefulness, remembrance, and inward clarity. The rooster becomes a natural alarm clock that is also a spiritual witness.
The striking twist is the rooster’s cry described as “نوحه‌گری”—keening, lamentation, the kind of crying done at funerals. A rooster normally “crows,” but the poet hears it as a dirge. That shift turns an everyday sound into a moral and spiritual warning.
The second line is a direct address—“دانی که…؟” (“Do you know…?”). This is not just a question; it’s a gentle challenge: are you awake in the deeper sense, or only physically?

یعنی که نمودند در آیینهٔ صبح
کز عمر، شبی گذشت و تو بی‌خبری

It means this: morning holds up a mirror and shows you—
another night of your life is gone, and you didn’t even notice.

Explanation
“یعنی که” signals: “What it means is…” The poet interprets the rooster’s “lament” for you, almost like a teacher unpacking a sign.
“نمودند” (they showed) uses an intentionally vague “they.” In Persian, this can point to the unseen—fate, time, the order of the world, or ultimately God—without pinning the mystery down. The effect: the message feels universal and unavoidable.
“آیینهٔ صبح” (the mirror of morning) is the key image. Morning doesn’t merely arrive; it reflects. It shows you what passed while you were not paying attention. The mirror is also moral: it exposes the face of your life as it truly is, not as you imagine it.
“کز عمر، شبی گذشت” is devastatingly simple: a night of your life has gone by. “Night” is both literal (one night) and symbolic (a portion of your finite lifetime). In this tradition, time is your capital—once spent, it does not return.
“تو بی‌خبری” means more than “you didn’t know.” It’s closer to heedlessness: being asleep to what matters, living on autopilot, forgetting mortality and purpose.