If there was an iron-tongued flame that is spent today if there were damascened sunsets ablaze they are moth-faded now if there was colour on my cheek aglow and love in my heart afire that is in the past-now the phthisic routine; again and anon; to exist as torpid as the days inane patterns on a skeletal schedule without you and there will always be darkness at noon. The writer is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies, School of International Service, American University, Washington, DC