The Unknown Artist

This quatrain by Omar Khayyam says:

“Though color and beauty have been given to me,
My face like the tulip, my stature like the cypress,
Still, I do not know why, in this tavern of dust,
The Eternal Painter adorned me so.”

هر چند که رنگ و بوی زیباست مرا

چون لاله رخ و چو سرو بالاست مرا

معلوم نشد که در طرب‌خانهٔ خاک

نقاش ازل بهر چه آراست مرا

In these lines, Khayyam looks at himself, and at humanity, as part of a mysterious creation.
He acknowledges the beauty and elegance of life, the form and grace we’re given, yet he questions why it was given at all.

The “Tavern of Dust”, what a powerful phrase.
To Khayyam, the world is both a place of joy and decay, beauty and impermanence.
We bloom like flowers, we shine like cypress trees, and then we fade, returning to dust.

So he asks: Why did the eternal artist paint such fragile beauty?
Why give us form, love, and wonder, only to erase it?

This is not despair, but curiosity, a profound questioning of existence itself.
Through his poetic doubt, Khayyam reminds us:
Even if we never find the reason, there is meaning in marveling at the mystery.