The Gift, page 8
Sometimes a poem happens like this one:
The mule I sit on while I recite
Starts off in one direction
But then gets drunk
And lost in
Heaven.
WHY ABSTAIN ?
Why
Abstain from love
When like the beautiful snow goose
Someday your soul
Will leave this summer
Camp?
Why
Abstain from happiness
When like a skilled lion
Your heart is
Nearing
And
Will someday see
The divine prey is
Always
Near!
THE WARRIOR
The warriors tame
The beasts in their past
So that the night’s hoofs
Can no longer break the jeweled vision
In the heart.
The intelligent and the brave
Open every closet in the future and evict
All the mind’s ghosts who have the bad habit
Of barfing everywhere.
For a long time the Universe
Has been germinating in your spine
But only a Pir* has the talent,
The courage to slay
The past-giant, the future-anxieties.
The warrior
Wisely sits in a circle
With other men
Gathering the strength to unmask
Himself,
Then
Sits, giving,
Like a great illumined planet on
The
Earth.
* Persian: Saint
DIVIDING GOD
The moon starts singing
When everyone is asleep
And the planets throw a bright robe
Around their shoulders and whirl up
Close to her side.
Once I asked the moon,
“Why do you and your sweet friends
Not perform so romantically like that
To a larger crowd?”
And the whole sky chorus resounded,
“The admission price to hear
The lofty minstrels
Speak of love
Is affordable only to those
Who have not exhausted themselves
Dividing God all day
And thus need rest.
The thrilled Tavern fiddlers
Who are perched on the roof
Do not want their notes to intrude
Upon the ears
Where an accountant lives
With a sharp pencil
Keeping score of words
Another
In their great sorrow or sad anger
May have once said
To you.”
Hafiz knows:
The sun will stand as your best man
And whistle
When you have found the courage
To marry forgiveness,
When you have found the courage
To marry
Love.
I SAW TW O BIRDS
Both of our mouths
Can fit upon this flute I carry.
My music will sound
So much sweeter that way
With your breath and my breath
Poking each other in the ribs
And kissing.
I saw two birds on a limb this morning
Laughing with the sun.
They reminded me of how
We will one day exist.
My dear,
Keep thinking about God,
Keep thinking about the Beloved
And soon our nest will be the
Whole firmament.
Forget about all your desires for truth,
We have gone far beyond that,
For now it is just—
Pure need.
Both our hearts are meant to sing.
Both our souls are destined to touch
And kiss
Upon this holy flute
God carries.
MUHAMMAD’S TWIN
I
Know
The one you are looking
For.
I call that man Muhammad’s
Twin.
You once saw Him, so now your eyes
Are weaving a great net of tenderness
That will one day
Capture
God.
TEN
Tiny Gods
Some gods say, the tiny ones,
“I am not here in your vibrant, moist lips
That need to beach themselves upon
The golden shore of a
Naked body.”
Some gods say, “I am not
The scarred yearning in the unrequited soul;
I am not the blushing cheek
Of every star and
Planet—
I am not the applauding Chef
Of those precious secretions that can distill
The whole mind into a perfect wincing jewel, if only
For a moment;
Nor do I reside in every pile of sweet warm dung
Born of the earth’s
Gratuity.”
Some gods say, the ones we need to hang,
“Your mouth is not designed to know His,
Love was not born to consume
The luminous
Realms.”
Dear ones,
Beware of the tiny gods frightened men
Create
To bring an anesthetic relief
To their sad
Days.
THIS UNION
This
Union you want
With the earth and sky,
This union we all need with love,
A golden wing from God’s heart just
Touched the ground,
Now
Step upon it
With your brave sun-vows
And help our eyes
To
Dance!
WHEN YOU CAN ENDURE
When
The words stop
And you can endure the silence
That reveals your heart’s
Pain
Of emptiness
Or that great wrenching-sweet longing,
That is the time to try and listen
To what the Beloved’s
Eyes
Most want
To
Say.
THIS TALKING RAG
It
Was all
So clear this morning,
My mind and heart had never felt
More convinced:
There is only God,
A Great Wild
God.
But somehow I got yanked from
That annihilating
Realization
And can now appear again
As this wine-stained
Talking
Rag.
WHO WILL FEED MY CAT ?
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.
BURGLARS HEAR WATCHDOGS
If one
Is afraid of losing anything
They have not looked into the Friend’s eyes;
They have forgotten God’s
Promise.
The jewels you get when you meet the Beloved
Go on multiplying themselves;
They take root
Everywhere.
They keep mating all the time
Like spring-warmed
Creatures.
Burglars
Hear watchdogs inside of His
Gifts
And run.
A STILL CUP
For
God
To make love,
For the divine alchemy to work,
The Pitcher needs a still cup.
Why
Ask Hafiz to say
Anything more about
Your most
Vital
Requirement?
THAT LAMP THAT NEEDS NO OIL
I have made the journey into Nothing.
I have lit that lamp that
Needs no oil.
I have cried great streams
Of emerald crystals
On my scarred knees, begging love
To never again let me hear from
Any world
The sound of my own name,
Even from the voice of divine thought
Or see that pen you gave me, God,
In the sun’s or sky’s skillful hand
Writing
Anything other than the word—
One.
I have made the journey into Nothing.
I have become that flame that needs
No fuel.
Beloved,
Now what need is there to ever
Call for Hafiz?
For if you did,
I would just step out
of You.
TOO WONDERFUL
No one could ever paint
A too wonderful
Picture
Of my heart
Or
God.
ELEVEN
Elephant Wondering
A seed
Has sprouted beneath a golden leaf
In a dark forest.
This seed is seriously contemplating,
Seriously wondering about
The moseying habits
Of the Elephant.
Why?
Because
In this lucid, wine-drenched tale
The Elephant is really—
God,
Who has His big foot upon us,
Upon the golden leaf under which lies
This sprouting
Universe
Wherein
We are all a little concerned
And
Nervous.
AN OLD MUSICIAN
How
Should
Those who know of God
Meet and
Part?
The way
An old musician
Greets his beloved
Instrument
And will take special care,
As a great artist always does,
To enhance the final note
Of each
Performance.
THE FISH AND I WILL CHAT
Once
In a while
The fish and I will chat
In the silent
Language:
We look
Into each other’s eyes and smile,
And they often
Say,
“Hey, Hafiz
We see you know the joy of
Our existence,
We see you have discovered how meditation
Can free you from land,
Mind, debts, alimony—the
Whole works,
And like
Us
Let you carouse all day
In
God.”
THE HEART IS RIGHT
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.
OUT OF GOD’ S HAT
The stars got poured into the sky
Out of a Magician’s hat last night,
And all of them have fallen into my hair.
Some have even tangled my eyelashes
Into luminous, playful knots.
Wayfarer,
You are welcome to cut a radiant tress
That lays upon my shoulders.
Wrap it around your trembling heart and body
That craves divine comfort and warmth.
I am like a pitcher of milk
In the hands of a mother who loves you.
All of my contents now
Have been churned into dancing suns and moons.
Lean your sweet neck and mouth
Out of that dark nest where you hide,
I will pour effulgence into your mind.
Come spring
You can find me rolling in fields
That are exploding in
Holy battles
Of scents, of sounds—everything is
A brilliant colored nova on a stem.
Forest animals hear me laughing
And surrender their deepest instincts and fears,
They come charging into meadows
To lick my hands and face,
This makes me so happy,
I become so happy
That my rising wink turns into a magic baton.
When my soft-eyed creatures see that wonderful signal
We all burst into singing
And make strange and primal beautiful sounds!
My only regret in this world then becomes:
That your shyness keeps you from placing
Your starving body against God
And seeing the Beloved become so pleased
With your courage
That His belly begins to rock and rock,
Then more planets get to leap
Onto the welcome mat of existence
All because
Of your precious love.
The Friend has turned my verse into sacred pollen.
When a breeze comes by
Falcons and butterflies
And playful gangs of young angels
Mounted on emerald spears
Take flight from me like a great sandstorm
That can blind you to all but the Truth!
Dear one,
Even if you have no net to catch Venus
My music
Will circle this earth for hundreds of years
And fall like resplendent debris,
Holy seed, onto a fertile woman.
For Hafiz
Wants to help you laugh at your every
Desire.
Hafiz
Wants you to know
Your life within God’s arms,
Your dance within God’s
Arms
Is already
Perfect!
THE CLAY BOWL’S DESTINY
