Let­ter to Omar Khayyam opens not with for­mal­i­ty, but with a breeze—the kind that stirs rose petals over your rest­ing place, remind­ing us how you taught the world to notice what fades. These petals, caught mid-fall, echo the very vers­es that made you unfor­get­table. You did not plead with eter­ni­ty or argue for par­adise. Instead, you toast­ed the present with a full cup, choos­ing laugh­ter over long­ing. Your words, carved in the wine-drenched air of Per­sia, still car­ry the scent of warmed earth and dis­tant stars. Life, as you paint­ed it, was not meant to be solved—it was meant to be tast­ed. Under each bough’s shade, you found a uni­verse of ques­tions and let them rest beside the bread, the jug, and the friend. This way of see­ing the world, with­out demand, brought dig­ni­ty to uncer­tain­ty and charm to even the dust we’re des­tined to become.

You made it clear—heaven and hell were too rigid to con­tain truth, and belief with­out won­der was a form of blind­ness. No fire was feared, no bliss was begged; instead, you asked if the clay ves­sel should trem­ble before the well that shaped it. This sin­gle image—of the pitch­er and its source—summed up more than reli­gion could ever declare. Death, for you, was not a pun­ish­ment nor a prize. It was sim­ply the clos­ing of a cir­cle, the cool­ing of wine, the silence after music. And that silence was not feared but accept­ed. In your vision, we do not rage at end­ings, but tip our heads and drink while the glass is still full. To ques­tion divin­i­ty was, in your world, a kind of reverence—not of dog­ma, but of awe. Your phi­los­o­phy danced at the edges of faith, not to dis­miss it, but to res­cue it from cer­tain­ty.

Your qui­et defi­ance, wrapped in lyric and metaphor, placed you among those few who tru­ly see time as it is: vast, imper­son­al, and patient. Where oth­ers offered promis­es, you offered pres­ence. You did not write for pow­er or lega­cy; you wrote as a man watch­ing the moon rise for the thou­sandth time and still find­ing it worth men­tion­ing. Your qua­trains have long out­lived the empires they passed through. Though you are laid in Per­sian earth, your thoughts have crossed deserts, libraries, and lan­guages, teach­ing count­less read­ers to live a lit­tle more light­ly, to sigh with­out shame, and to toast the day with­out apol­o­gy. Your poems are not mere­ly translations—they are rein­car­na­tions. In every tongue that dares to recite you, your voice is reborn.

It is strange, then, to place your serene wis­dom beside the clam­or of the West’s iron-clad his­to­ry. The blood-soaked fields where Harold fell—what con­trast they present to your gar­den of vers­es. There, men chased crowns through mud and ash; here, you chased clar­i­ty in the bot­tom of a glass. While swords clashed on the hills of Sen­lac, you looked up and won­dered if the stars would remem­ber us at all. You did not need a throne to feel immor­tal. Where some carved their names in stone, you let yours dis­solve into the wind, trust­ing that truth has its own mem­o­ry. And indeed, cen­turies lat­er, you are remem­bered not for con­quer­ing land but for con­quer­ing doubt with calm.

Even now, your voice hums in the back­ground of a world too often drunk on its own impor­tance. You remind us that per­ma­nence is not the goal, that to live well is to live fully—even if only for a moment. You ask us to pause and sip the day. To stop pre­tend­ing we under­stand the after­life when we have not yet under­stood our after­noon. The earth, you said, will reclaim us, and that should not be mourned. Rather, it should be mar­veled at. If we are ves­sels, then let us be filled. If we are dust, then let us shim­mer in the light before we set­tle. This per­spec­tive is not fatalism—it is free­dom.

You gave beau­ty a back­bone. Your doubts nev­er dimmed your devo­tion to won­der. In a time when cer­tain­ty is often weaponized, your gen­tle­ness is rad­i­cal. You wrote of the wine not to escape the world, but to savor it. There was no shame in being human—only urgency to do it well, and with a smile. And so, this let­ter is not a trib­ute of mourn­ing. It is a thank-you for your clar­i­ty, your courage, and your cups raised high in the face of silence. Let the petals fall, Omar. The breeze remem­bers where to find you.