In the heart of Shiraz, where the scent of orange blossoms swirled through the night air, Layli sat beneath the ancient cypress tree. Her fingers traced the letters carved into its bark—a poem etched by a long-dead lover. The words burned with yearning, though their author was dust, and the ink of their longing had long dried.

Layli waited, as she had every evening for the past month. Her beloved, Ramin, a wandering poet, had promised to return before the new moon waned. But the crescent now grew thinner, and her hope flickered like a candle caught in the wind.

Stories from the Shahnameh spoke of heroes who crossed deserts and mountains for love. Layli whispered their names like a prayer, but in her heart, she knew Ramin was no Rustam, no Sohrab. He was only a poet, a man whose words could make the heavens weep, yet whose hands trembled when they brushed against hers.

A shadow fell across the moonlit path. Ramin stood there, a book of odes pressed to his chest. His face bore the wear of countless nights beneath foreign skies, yet his eyes blazed with the fire of one who had seen paradise.

“I have returned,” he said, voice quivering like a reed flute. “But only to leave again.”

Layli’s heart stilled, her soul caught between rage and despair. “What cruel jest is this, Ramin?”

“I wrote of you,” he said, holding out the book. “In every tavern, every court, I spoke your name. They call you the fire of the East, the muse of the cypress tree. But I cannot stay. Love burns too brightly in my chest, and it will consume me if I linger.”

She slapped the book from his hands. “You are no poet. You are a coward.”

But Ramin only smiled—a sorrowful curve of his lips. “A coward, perhaps. Yet a coward who will immortalize you.”

He turned, his silhouette merging with the night. Layli sank to the ground, the cold earth biting at her skin. She opened the book, its pages heavy with the ink of longing.

And there, in verse upon verse, she found herself—a woman who could ignite a thousand hearts, yet whose own would smolder in silence.

By morning, the cypress stood alone. But beneath it, a single page fluttered in the breeze, its words blazing with the truth of all Eastern love:
"To love is to burn—and to burn is to endure."