Today's Beautiful Gem: `The Palm Tree' by the eighth century Arabian poet
Abd-ar-Rahman I, translated by J. B. Trend.

"In the midst of my garden
Grows a palm-tree;
Born in the West,
Away from the country of palm-trees.

"I cried: You are like me,
For you resemble me
In wandering and peregrination,
And the long separation from kith and kin.

"You also
Grew up on a foreign soil;
Like me,
You are far from the country of your birth.

"May the fertilising clouds of morning
Water you in exile,
May the beneficent rains besought by the poor
Never forsake you."

om s'aantih: Peace! - J. K. Mohana Rao

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