A Sin to Count Love

Mujeeb Jaihoon’s passionate poem explores the vastness and elusiveness of love, defying definition and measurement.

She looked into my eyes, deep.
And into my heart, made a giant leap.

If in love you lose yourself,
This was it.

If in love you see worlds other,
This was it.

If in love is the joy of death,
This was it.

With her eye, she enquired:
“How much have you endeared?”

Testified I,
“As much

As the stars in the sky,
As the mountains high,

As the foam in the seas,
As on trees are the leaves,

As deep as her own eyes,
As vast as her own heart.”

Love is a sum total
Of this world and hereafter.

How then could I love explain
In words worldly, silly, plain?

Hey, my love,
Only which ends
Has numbers.
Love, but, burns
Forever without embers.

Love began before
We were ‘being’:
Shall extend even after
We will ‘un-being’

I will have no answer
On this earth,
Nor when I wait
For my destiny beneath.

Love is hard to weigh or count,
For every scale known, unbound.

It is a crime to measure,
Make not to me this gesture.

Love, like soul,
Is a matter of HIS Domain.
We only feel its signs
Which includes pain.

Therefore ask me not this again:
Love does not count as grain.

Force me not to commit this sin,
Not if you are of my love’s kin.

Nov 27 2010. Edit March 2024