The Sun Worshipper

Legends from Southern Iraq tell of a bird that loves the sun so much, that people named him the Sun Worshipper - it is a legendary bird called the "الدلم" (Dilem) by local folk.

Legends tell how he forever has his head up to the skies, and eyes looking directly at the sun's aura, turning all day with it as if dancing, so much so that his tears never stop falling in silent desperation and mute pain.

An old folk poet once told me:

ثلاثه بالملا مثلي يونون: الورق و الدلم و الخنسا الشجييه

To roughly mean that only three in existence will weep the way I do: the Dilem, the wood pigeon weeping the loss of her loved ones and the Khansa "الخنساء", a renowned female poet that wept the death of her eldest brother Sakhr till the day she died.

And though he was a southerner, and I a Baghdadi, we had long chats as he tended to our house's huge garden in days when I thought the world would never change .. we spoke of fools and kings and a million and one other things .. I loved him a lot .. he was also our gardener, and tended the garden out of love for us, as opposed to any sums of money.

The poet has long since died, pretty much like all those unfortunate enough to have known me and I to cross paths with them, which is a whole different argument on its own.

The Dilem will still dance his desperate, legendary dance underneath his beloved sun. She will forever be bright, long after he has gone, long after I have gone, and he, like me, will never stop weeping, content only to know that she will always be there to shine her warmth upon his miserable existence from far afield.

And forever will I weep and mourn you my one, content only that you are, like the sun, as bright, as warming and as loving, are somehow shining down on my barely existing being, till the day I die.

QED.