Light/Will someday split you open/Even if your life is now a cage
Earlier I wrote about reading Hafiz's poems lately, and how I could believe in his God (disregard the fact he is from the religious traditions of the Sufis, and disregard my heritage of Christanity). Just a second ago, I picked up The Subject Tonight is Love and the first random poems were these four:
In A Handful Of God
Poetry reveals that there is no empty space.
When your truth forsakes its shyness,
When your fears surrender to your strengths,
You will begin to experience
That all existence
Is a teeming sea of infinite life.
In a handful of ocean water
You could not count all the finely tuned
Musicians
Who are acting stoned
For very intelligent and sane reasons
And of course are becoming extremely sweet
And wild.
In a handful of the sky and earth,
In a handful of God,
We cannot count
All the ecstastic lovers who are dancing there
Behind the mysterious veil.
True art reveals there is no void
Or darkness.
There is no loneliness to the clear-eyed mystic
In this luminious, brimming
Playful world.
The Theater of Freedom
In my divine studio
What I have been working on is this:
Painting the Truth,
Revealing
A more realistic picture of God,
Tearing down the cruel walls
That seperate you from the tenderness of Fire.
Someone must be withholding
The crucial lines
In all those stories you have heard of our
Friend,
For there is still too much fear
And pallor on your cheeks,
And I rarely see you
In the marvelous Theater of Freedom.
Hafiz knows
You could not describe him.
Even if we sat side by side on a caravan
For years,
Even if we slept close in my desert tent
And you became familar
With the holy scent
That the sun and my Master leave
Whenever they visit me,
For something has happened
To your youthful passions,
That great fuel
You once had to defend yourself
Against becoming tame.
And your eyes no often tell me
That your once vital talent to extract joy
From the air
Has fallen into a sleep.
All that you could ever say of me
Can only describe my camel's tail --
And that coarse hair
That is barely visible sometimes
On the left side of the moon's nose.
In my divine studio
Where I am sitting now
Crafting your heart, lyre
And flute,
I long for the day when you will join me
In knowing
The extraordinary humor
And all the enchanting realities
Of the inifinite performances
of
God.
The Day Sky
Let us be like
Two falling stars in the day sky.
Let no one know of our sublime beauty
As we hold hands with God
And burn
Into a sacred existence that defies --
That surpasses
Every description of ecstasy
And love.
I Saw You Dancing
I saw you dancing last night on the roof
Of your house all alone.
I felt your heart longing for the
Friend.
I saw you whirling
Beneath the soft bright rose
That hung from an invisible stem in
The sky,
So I began to change into my best clothes
In hopes of joining you
Even though
I live a thousand miles away.
And if
You had spun like an immaculate sphere
Just two more times,
Then bowed again so sweetly to
The east,
You would have found God and me
Standing so near
And lifting you into our
Arms.
I saw you dancing last night near the roof
Of this world.
Hafiz feels your soul in mine
Calling for our
Beloved.