The Living Dead

Honouring Our Poetic Ancestors

The Sun Never Says
by Hafiz

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. Hafiz and Rumi are two of my very favourite poets. Both ecstatic Sufi mystics, their love of life, the earth, and the Beloved produced some of the most beautiful poetry the world has ever known (in my opinion.) Their work also has an underlying message; each poem calls to our deepest, highest selves, asking us to bring forth the best of what lies within us. Khwāja Shams-ud-Dīn Muhammad Hāfiz-e Shīrāzī,  was the most beloved poet of Persia. He was born in Shiraz, and lived from 1315 to 1390, in the time of Chaucer in England, and about one hundred years after Rumi. Not a lot is known about his life. At an early age, he memorized the Quran, and was thus given the title "Hafez", (someone who memorizes the Quran), which he later took for his pen name.  It is said his early love for a beautiful woman inspired his first mystic vigil, during which an angel of surpassing beauty appeared to him. After this visitation, his attempts at union became mystical, a pursuit of spiritual union with the Divine. His patron was  Hajji Zayn al-Attar. Hafiz became a famous Sufi master. He wrote some 500 ghazals over the course of 50 years,  averaging ten ghazals a year. His output is estimated at between 573 and 994 poems. Because  his poems were often ecstatic love songs from God to his beloved world, Hafiz has often been called "the Tongue of the Invisible". At age 60, Hafiz drew a circle and sat within it, to begin a 40-day-and-night vigil.  On the 40th day, he once again met with Zayn al-Attar, on what is known to be their fortieth anniversary, and was offered a cup of wine. It was then he is said to have attained "Cosmic Consciousness".  Twenty years after his death, a tomb, the Hafezieh, was erected to honor Hafiz in the Musalla Gardens in Shiraz. His work became known to the west largely through the efforts of Goethe, whose enthusiasm inspired Ralph Waldo Emerson to translate Hafiz's poetry in the nineteenth century. Hazrat Inayat Khan, the Indian teacher credited with bringing Sufism to the West,  proclaimed, "The words of Hafiz  have won every heart that listens." I believe this is true. sources: The Gift : Poems by Hafiz, translations by Daniel Ladinsky; Wikipedia [note: The poet's name is spelled Hafez by Wikipedia. The more usual spelling is the one I have used in this article.] Images used in this post remain under the copyright of the artists.