The Gift, page 13
Our heart’s range of
Forgiveness and
Compassion.
Who
Can I tell,
Who can Hafiz tell tonight
All the secrets of
Love?
STAY CLOSE TO THOSE SOUNDS
The sun turns a key in a lock each day
As soon as it crawls out of bed.
Light swings open a door
And the many kinds of love rush out
Onto the infinite green field.
Your soul sometimes plays a note
Against the Sky’s ear that excites
The birds and planets.
Stay close to any sounds
That make you glad you are alive.
Everything in this world is
Helplessly reeling.
An invisible wake was created
When God said to His beautiful dead lover,
“Be.”
Hafiz, who will understand you
If you do not explain that last line?
Well then,
I will sing it this way,
When God said to Illusion,
“Be.”
AN INVISIBLE PILE OF WOOD
It
Is often
Nothing the Master says
That keeps the desired fire in me
Alive.
Wherever the Master goes
An invisible pile of wood tags along
That he keeps throwing logs from
Onto my
Soul’s hearth.
IT HAS NOT RAINED LIGHT
It has not rained light for many days.
The wells in most eyes look
Drought-stricken.
Thus friends are not easy to find
In this barren
Place
Where most everyone has become ill
From guarding
Nothing.
On this primal caravan
Careers and cities can appear real in this
Intense
Desert heat,
But I say to my close ones,
“Don’t get lost in them,
It has not rained light there for days.
Look, most everyone is diseased
From ‘making love’ to
Nothing.”
BERSERK
Once
In a while
God cuts loose His purse strings,
Gives a big wink to my orchestra.
Hafiz
Does not require
Any more prompting than that
To let
Every instrument inside
Go
Berserk.
NO MORE LEAVING
At
Some point
Your relationship
With God
Will
Become like this:
Next time you meet Him in the forest
Or on a crowded city street
There won’t be anymore
“Leaving.”
That is,
God will climb into
Your pocket.
You will simply just take
Yourself
Along!
WOW
Where does the real poetry
Come from?
From the amorous sighs
In this moist dark when making love
With form or
Spirit.
Where does poetry live?
In the eye that says, “Wow wee,”
In the overpowering felt splendor
Every sane mind knows
When it realizes—our life dance
Is only for a few magic
Seconds,
From the heart saying,
Shouting,
“I am so damn
Alive.”
WHAT SHOULD WE DO ABOUT THAT MOON?
A wine bottle fell from a wagon
And broke open in a field.
That night one hundred beetles and all their cousins
Gathered
And did some serious binge drinking.
They even found some seed husks nearby
And began to play them like drums and whirl.
This made God very happy.
Then the “night candle” rose into the sky
And one drunk creature, laying down his instrument,
Said to his friend—for no apparent
Reason,
“What should we do about that moon?”
Seems to Hafiz
Most everyone has laid aside the music
Tackling such profoundly useless
Questions.
TWENTY
Cupping My Hands Like a Mountain Valley
Like the way the valleys of the earth
Cup their hands for light and drink,
Like the way the desert opens up its sweet mouth
And laughs
When someone melts pearls in the sky
And rain, rain
Returns like a divine lover
With a hundred wonderful gifts
O, the words from the true Teacher
Bring my mind and cells
Such sacred nourishment and life.
When the moon is full
It gets gregarious and likes to chat.
I have heard it say,
“Look what can happen, dear seeker,
When you lean your graceful arms toward God in prayer,
Look at all that amorous light you can catch
That will help the night musicians and your soul
Get loose.”
I stand revolving like a great dervish
In an ecstatic submission to His will.
I have been hired to perform the final act of grace.
I am the priest in every sacred wedding tent.
Tonight, I am a sovereign planet
With a great wool skirt.
I am a divine artist
On stage before God’s entire court.
With each sublime whirl and orbit
I bow to the Sun’s feet.
I fill my glass for you, dear pilgrim,
Beneath the luminous leaking barrel.
I then pour all the contents of my heart
And eye’s experience
Upon this banquet table,
For your body and mind are a precious silk cloth
Hafiz has come to dye!
I circumambulate the Truth from the sky
Like a golden vulture.
I have forsaken all the crippling manners
Of even the most royal birds.
I carry a lute in my talons like a mortal weapon.
Please, please enter into a holy battle with me.
For I am God’s friend
Who maims with compassion!
And you are a lost dove upon His wing.
I can teach you
How to bribe the Beloved with an angelic tune
So that the divine manna of His glance
Will fall upon your palate.
Some days I know
That you are en route to your own slaughter.
Some days I know
You are being trained as an emissary
To serve in His office of joy.
Dear one,
Last night, in the gallery of Reality
I saw a portrait I will never forget:
The Beloved was stirring a pot
With a spoon the size of a universe
And when He lifted it
I saw this whole world and its affairs
Were not even a floating speck of barley
Before the radiance of two diamonds
That were His brilliant cheeks!
All I could do when beholding that vision
Was to fall upon my knees
And cup my hands like a humble valley
Huddled between the thighs
Of this exquisite, holy mountain range
And try to build a reservoir to hold the Beloved’s
Resplendent smile
That offers myriad tickets to freedom,
That offers the splendor of hearing God sing!
I am a spinning wheel upon the infinite.
I have swallowed that axis and hub
That fathered light and truth.
Grab hold and swing from me, my dear,
Doing the impossible
With your hands and feet both clapping.
I offer a mother’s comfort and knowledge
To those who are tired and weak.
And when you become strong
I will conduct like a skilled warrior-king
Your divine volcanic glands exploding like new galaxies
In all their blessed madness.
God offers love, love, love
With His own hands,
To your beautiful parched holy mouth.
Open your soul, handsome dying one.
See all gender talk as a mighty joke,
In a oneness as glorious as this!
Hafiz, go running from that gallery
Like a naked, drunk lion
Roaring with a laughter that will shake
The whole earth
And every window and door throughout the sleeping
Cities,
Like a man,
Like a man who is delivering on a great steed
Fantastic news!
Tie yourself as a bell
To herds of mating camels
And spring flocks of clouds and birds.
Tie yourself to spawning stars
And to leaping whales
In a game of tag with the Moon!
Tie yourself to everything in creation
That got poured from God’s magic hat.
O, tie your soul like a magnificent sweet chime
To every leaf and limb in existence,
Then begin to shout divine obscenities
So that He will surely send a tremendous storm.
Because Hafiz, because Hafiz,
O, sweet Hafiz,
You are a man with such benevolent and fantastic
Good News!
Dear wayfarer,
Now indulge me in a sober moment.
Please set down your glass.
I can help you write a letter of resignation
To all your fears and sadness.
Listen:
Let all movement and sound,
Let all movement and sound
Begin to speak the truth to your heart
And write its music upon your vision and
Soft pink tongue.
Soak all your prejudices in oil—
I would consider it a favor.
Bring and sing to me your darkest thoughts,
For my whole body is a blazing emerald wick,
I am a pure flame
Who needs and loves to burn your trash.
We should lean against each other more
In such a strange world as this
That can make you scared
And even believe in that lie called death.
We should support each other—
Give more warmth
In such a demanding world as this.
Let all movement
Gently yield something of God
Upon your chin and vision
And roll down onto your prayer mat
That will take root in the holy soil of your surrender.
May I hone your devotion with a kiss?
For all in existence is just spinning like this
Sweet earth
In a divine current.
Why not dance like Hafiz in the cup,
In the cup of His spoon?
I offer my clapping spirit to you,
That is in eternal movement.
Hafiz offers to bow at your feet
With hands that God has shaped and pounded.
Look into my palms, my dear,
They now contain your face and infinite existence.
All your ideas of space and time are shadows
That will run from this Sun He has made me.
I want to tie myself
As a gift around your neck.
I want to place a wonderful secret
Near your veins.
Why not use my verse as a golden camel bell
That you can turn upside down into a chalice
And fill with wine?
Hafiz,
You are a divine camel bell
That the Beloved is ringing with His own hand.
Hafiz, you were a blessed slave to Truth
That died like a cut reed and became hollow—
Turned into a divine instrument
That God now lifts to His own mouth,
Plays to summon this world to freedom.
How many men exist upon this earth
To whom I could whisper a holy secret?
Dear ones,
“God has sown Himself onto my tongue.”
Like the way
The valleys of the earth
Cup their hands for light and drink,
Like
The way
The desert opens up its sweet mouth
And laughs
When someone melts pearls in the sky
And rain, rain
Returns like a divine lover
With a thousand wonderful
Gifts,
O, the luminous words of my Beloved
Now bring my mind and soul
Such a sacred
Nourishment
And
Peace.
WHY NOT BE POLITE
Everyone
Is God speaking.
Why not be polite and
Listen to
Him?
TWENTY-ONE
The God Who Only Knows Four Words
Every
Child
Has known God,
Not the God of names,
Not the God of don’ts,
Not the God who ever does
Anything weird,
But the God who only knows four words
And keeps repeating them, saying:
“Come dance with Me.”
Come
Dance.
YOU WERE BRAVE IN THAT HOLY WAR
You have done well
In the contest of madness.
You were brave in that holy war.
You have all the honorable wounds
Of one who has tried to find love
Where the Beautiful Bird
Does not drink.
May I speak to you
Like we are close
And locked away together?
Once I found a stray kitten
And I used to soak my fingers
In warm milk;
It came to think I was five mothers
On one hand.
Wayfarer,
Why not rest your tired body?
Lean back and close your eyes.
Come morning
I will kneel by your side and feed you.
