This
Sky
Where we live
Is no place to lose your wings
So love, love,
Love.
How
Did the rose
Ever open its heart
And give to this world
All its
Beauty
It felt the encouragement of light
Against its
Being
Otherwise,
We all remain
Too
Frightened
Even
After
All this time
The sun never says to the earth
“You owe
Me.”
Look
What happens
With a love like that,
It lights the Whole
Sky
If God
Invited you to a party
And said,
“Everyone
In the ballroom tonight
Will be my special
Guest,”
How would you then treat them
When you
Arrived?
Indeed, indeed!
And Hafiz knows
There is no one in this world
Who
Is not upon
His Jeweled Dance
Floor.
Blame
Keeps the sad game going,
It keeps stealing all your wealth
Giving to an imbecile with
No financial skills,
Dear one,
Wise
Up.
I
Will need
Someone to feed my cat
When I leave this world,
Though my cat is not ordinary.
She only has three paws:
Fire, air,
Water.
The
Heart is right to cry
Even when the smallest drop of light,
Of love,
Is taken away.
Perhaps you may kick, moan, scream
In a dignified
Silence,
But you are so right
To do so in any fashion
Until God returns
To
You.
We all
Sit in His orchestra,
Some play their
Fiddles,
Some wield their
Clubs.
Tonight is worthy of music.
Let’s get loose
With
Compassion,
Let’s down in the delicious
Ambience of
Love.
What
We speak
Becomes the house we live in.
Who will want to sleep in your bed
If the roof leaks
Right above
It?
Look what happens when the tongue
Cannot say to kindness,
“I will be your slave.”
The moon
Covers her face with both hands
And can’t bear
To look
Why
Are there
So few in the court
Of a perfect
Saint?
Because
Every time you are near Him
You have to leave pieces
Of your
Ego
With
The hatcheck
Girl
Who won’t give them
Back….
Passing, passing
The blossom gives way to the fruit;
Both are necessary,
One passes into another.
Bread exists to be broken
To sustain its purpose,
The grape on the vine
Is wine in the making,
Crush it and it comes alive.
When for an infinite second
You leap like antelope
Out of time’s snaking passage
You leave attachment behind,
It fades into the distance.
Timeless, without expectation
You’re born into non-attachment.
Don’t flounder in preambles of the past
Wounded with regrets; don’t let autumnal
Nostalgia blind you to the sounds and scents
Of the present’s Spring; you’re a native of
The pellucid moment, make it infinite beyond
The curving snake of passing time and space,
Learn to die in the infinitely elusive moment.
I was a speck of dust measured in molecules
Now I am a rising mountain peak, snow-capped;
I was forgotten like coffee grains in an empty pot
Now I am surging light leading a multitude.
You erased my famine, unpicked my anger
Your energy charges my voice, it radiates my heart;
Now I am alive with the ore of words pouring
From my lips like molten lava glittering with joy
__________________________
Selection of short poems of beloved Persian poets namely Hafiz and Rumi translated by Daniel Ladinsky, and Raficq Abdulla
