Karda Am Nala Base

Karda Am Nala Base — I Have Lamented Much — opens with the search for a kindred soul (ham-nafas, literally a companion in breathing, one who breathes the same sorrow). The lamentation (nala) has been extensive — 'much' — and the search has not ended in finding. At midnight the caravan bell (zang-e karavan) is heard lamenting: the caravan's bell signals motion, departure, the caravans of those who have left. The speaker, stationary and lamenting, identifies with a sound that belongs to something passing.

'Why do I have tumult and outcry? / I have complaint against the sky' — the complaint (shikwa) against the sky (asman) is a classical Persian rhetorical position. The sky is the agent of fate; to complain to it is to address the administrator of the speaker's condition. The complaint is not 'for this' or 'for that' — it is categorical, against the conditions of existence itself, embodied in the 'unkind idol' (bot-e be-mehr).

'Come O moon of Canaan, come O ruby of Badakhshan / When will the fever of your love release my collar for one night?' — the moon of Canaan (mah-e Kanaan) is a specific Persian reference: Canaan is associated with Joseph (Yusuf), whose beauty was proverbial. The ruby of Badakhshan refers to the famous rubies mined in Afghanistan's Badakhshan province — among the world's finest. To invoke both is to locate the beloved in a geography of superlative beauty: Biblical and Afghan at once.