The Living Dead

~ Honouring our poetic ancestors ~

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.
I will so gently
Spread open your mouth
And let you taste something of my
Sacred mind and life.

Surely
There is something wrong
With your ideas of God.

O, surely there is something wrong
With your ideas of God

If you think
Our Beloved would not be so
Tender.

Hafez (1325/26–1389/90)

A friend posted this on facebook in December and I fell in love with it instantly. (Well, the kitten. And then, the beautiful conclusion.)

Hafez (aka Hafiz; full name Khwaja Shamsu d-Din Muhammad Hafez-e Shirazi) was an Iranian lyric poet of the 14th Century, still one of the most famous and beloved poets in his country. Wikipedia tells us he is the most popular poet in Iran, whose works can be found in almost every home, and are often used as proverbs or for a kind of fortune-telling. The country even celebrates a Hafez Day (Oct. 12). Among other things, he was a prolific writer of ghazals.

An editorial note at Amazon says that he lived
towards the end of what is often seen as the golden age of Persian poetry. He lived almost all his life in the southern city of Shiraz where he was involved in the court circles of various rulers and played an important role in the vibrant literary and spiritual life of the times. His poetry is collected in his Divan, which contains nearly 500 ghazals and some other verse. Little is known about his personal circumstances. His reputation was established in his own time and has continued to grow ever since, to the point where Iranians and many others regard him as one of that nation's greatest poets.

I'm guessing we don't have any definitive images of him from that time, but he is usually portrayed as looking something like this picture, which is an artist's idea of him – and I think it's a fair assumption that an Iranian man of that time would have looked quite like this.

Were his love poems erotic or mystical? Scholars are still arguing that. The one I've chosen here is clearly both romantic and spiritual – and I wonder if it is not himself he is addressing as the weary wayfarer. We are told that he was a great punner and satirist too, so perhaps we need not limited ourselves to only one kind of interpretation.

His work is still in print. You can find English translations at Amazon, at this link. You can read a number of his poems at Poetry Soup, also here and here. And there's this downloadable pdf.  Enjoy!

Material shared in 'The Living Dead' is presented for study and review. Poems, photos and other writings and images remain the property of the copyright owners, where applicable (older poems may be out of copyright).

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.

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ The Sun

“The sun just touched the morning;
The morning, happy thing,
Supposed that he had come to dwell,
And life would be all spring.” 
― Emily Dickinson

“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.” 
―Hāfez-e Šīrāzī,  حافظ

Midweek Motif ~ The Sun

There is an event, called Sun-Earth Day: 

"Sun-Earth Day is a joint educational program established in 2000 by NASA and ESA. The goal of the program is to popularize the knowledge about the Sun, and the way it influences life on Earth . . . The day itself is mainly celebrated in the USA near the time of the spring equinox. However, the Sun-Earth Day event actually runs throughout the year . . ."  (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

The structure of the Sun

And we are coming up on the March Equinox, spring in the Northern Hemisphere and fall in the Southern Hemisphere:  

The March equinox (or Northward equinox) is the equinox on the earth when the Sun appears to cross the celestial equator, heading northward. The March equinox is the vernal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere and the autumnal equinox in the Southern Hemisphere.

Chichen Itza pyramid during the spring equinox – Kukulkan, the famous descent of the snake

But as Poets we are free to use the sun as myth, symbol, mood, etc:

Ra in his solar barge

Your Challenge:  Make the sun the center or the central image of this week's poem.

Summer Sun 

by Robert Louis Stevenson

Great is the sun, and wide he goes

Through empty heaven with repose;

And in the blue and glowing days

More thick than rain he showers his rays.

Though closer still the blinds we pull
To keep the shady parlour cool,
Yet he will find a chink or two
To slip his golden fingers through.

. . . . 

(Read the rest HERE at Poem Hunter.com)

There is another sun

by Emily Dickinson

There is another sky,

Ever serene and fair,

And there is another sunshine,

Though it be darkness there;

Never mind faded forests, Austin,

Never mind silent fields –

Here is a little forest,

Whose leaf is ever green;

Here is a brighter garden,

Where not a frost has been;

In its unfading flowers

I hear the bright bee hum:

Prithee, my brother,

Into my garden come!

For those who are new to Poets United:  

• Post your Sun-centered poem on your site, and then link it here.
• Share only original and new work written for this challenge. 
• If you use a picture include its link.  
• Please leave a comment here. 
• Please visit and comment on our poems.

(Our next Midweek Motif is "captivity" : 
thinking of terrorism, slavery and other violence.)

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