Monday, February 14, 2011

Vanilla: Hafiz to the Rescue!

I opened my book, The Subject Tonight is Love: 60 Wild and Sweet Poems of Hafiz, like a school girl flipping open a book and reading the page where her finger lands, hoping for a message...exactly like that, as a matter of fact. Looking for some love from my man Hafiz.

And of course, he delivered:

They Call to You to Sing

Stones are longing for what you know.

If they had the graceful movements
Of your feet and tongue,

They would not stop laughing
Between their ecstatic dance steps and unbroken praise.

Your heart beats inside a sacred drum,
Its skin is tanned and stretched -
Our skin is alive and stretched -
With the wild molecules of His Wondrous Existence.

Your mind and eyes are an immense silk cloth
Upon which all your thoughts and movements paint.

Your soul once sat on an easel on my knee.
For ages I have been sketching you
With myriad shapes of sounds and light;

Now awake, dear pilgrim,
With your thousand swaying arms
That need to caress the Sky.

Now awake with your love for the Friend and the Creation,
Help this Old Tavern Sweeper, Hafiz,
To celebrate.

No more enemies from this golden view -
All who have entered this holy mountain cave
Have dropped their shields and swords.

We all cook together around a fire
Our yearning music builds.

We share our tools and instruments and plates;
We are companions on this earth

As the sun and planets are in the sky.
We are all sentries at our sacred humble posts.

The stones and stars envy the movements
Of your legs and tongue
And call to you to sing on their behalf.

The atoms in your cells and limbs are full of wonderful talents;
They dance in the Hidden Choir I conduct.

Don’t sleep tonight, dear pilgrim,
So I can lead you on my white mare to His Summer House.

This love you now have of the Truth
Will never forsake you.

Your joys and sufferings on this arduous path
Are lifting your worn veil like a rising stage curtain

And will surely reveal your Magnificent Self
So that you can guide this world like Hafiz

In the Hidden Choir
God and His friends will forever
Conduct.

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