I can get into correspondence with people around the world, although I try to limit it to focus on my creative projects. But someone did recently write to me and ask if I could share some inspiration, if you will, that I had shared before and that I thought could be helpful. 

So here is some of that, which evolved into a letter I plan to touch up and include in a new book project in a context I feel works very well. I have expounded on all here— as you will see, if your read on… 

I sent this person couple of my books as a present— as I felt she did my life's work with Hafiz a great favor, and used her rather esteemed position to share my work with many. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson got a mention in the below, as she said she was a big fan of his. And Emerson was a huge, huge fan of Hafiz. Emerson is a standout in the Preface to the below Hafiz book mentioned. 

***

My dear .... ,

So glad, sooo glad you feel a special connection with those books sent.

And wonderful, I think, if you could start to carefully read a poem or two once a week. Both Rumi and Hafiz offer some advice on how to most enrich one's self via their poetry (any good poetry I would say), saying:

“There can be a beautiful sunrise in poetry

  that then leaves a warmth in your eyes 

                 and heart for others.”

That is, they both speak of the value of reading a good poem slowly and out loud, to imbibe more of it, and then be able to share more of them in your sounds, thoughts and movements:

      “Sometimes opening your mouth 

            lets the divine rain in. 

               Or can give that,

                   which can so

                       nourish." 

And:

“A real wedding can then happen, and

any 'guests' that then enter your house,

                  

your world, can share in our beauty from

our sweet vows of love, and holding hands.”

Yeah, try reading some Hafiz or Rumi (or others) you might really like, slowly and out loud. 

Ahhh poetry, I have been crazy about it—with it— almost every day for over 30 years— and as I still am right now!

Got to dash, but will add a longish PS, with the morning caffeine still helping.

Take care dear, take care,

Daniel Ladinsky

PS.OOOO: Curious what was your birthday poem in A Year With Hafiz? We should have said in that book: one can have any poem they want for their birthday.

And sometime, maybe picture Hafiz or Rumi or RWE (Ralph Waldo Emerson)…. reading you the poem on page 4, January 2nd titled: “So You Can Plant More Wheat.” I have about 1000 poems published with Penguin in 7 books, and think every one of those is in some ways.... trying to help us munchkins plant more wheat, and offer more golden warm bread— love—to the world, and surely to ourselves.

Again, take care, take care, and a big hug.

***

The above letter is over, but want to repeat those two words: Divine Rain. For I think that is vital to the connection millions have felt with Rumi & Hafiz for centuries, and now also in the English language. They are a sacred nourishment, and we— our hearts, minds, spirit-wings— earths that so need them to help us grow, evolve, fly, and kiss the Sun— as can great poetry, great art! And great friendships; a flower's or mountain's wink; or shaking the sky's paw, or a dog's.

Shaking God's Paw, or Buddha’s. Sounds like a Hafiz poem. I will try and find that one!!

Sharing the sun at night. “Share more of them.” Rumi & Hafiz, of their remarkable, remarkable divine minds & hearts. Just start reading some good poems of theirs slowly & out loud— like prayers, like some magic mantras. R&H are keys to the Sky, and to the Soul of the earth.

TRANSFERENCE. From the best of teachers to the best of their students there is always a transference. That hope, I would say, is what brought them together in some ways; in some very real ways.

We all have cherished hopes; I think every creature does. But they can get so beaten down in us that they can no longer so vitally safeguard & empower our ideals— inspire us to levels of greater emotional, psychological and physical health— a greater, actual, living, spiritual-awareness.

That mentioned Hafiz poem: “So You Can Plant More Wheat”... is all about that wonderful transference that always takes place in love. That always happens if you can let some divine rain soak into your marrow.

 

OOOOO, again: thought I was finished with this one. But I got to reading the March 1st entry in the book: A Year With Hafiz, and was touched by the poem. Really all the poems in books with my name on them truly seem so beyond me. My books really seem like miracles to me. I know, I soooo know— I am just the packhorse for them.

This link offers that poem as it appears in A Year With Hafiz, on March 1st. And I like what the blogger says, and what she (or he) quotes of Tagore. And I had never seen this poem on this link before.

All the days of the year have a Hafiz poem in: A Year With Hafiz. And we even have a poem for 31 April (and say): “Just in case there ever is an April 31st.” And that is a sweet, wildish, lively one that even has a connection to Ralph Waldo Emerson who translated Hafiz.

Then we even have a December 40th poem in that book— marked appropriately with question marks??? And that poem/page has a rather from ... outer-space long footnote to it. I guess there should just be no-holds-barred in any decent poetry book.

So, what else to say now, but…

A BIG HUG TO YOU. And may you and some cherry blossoms smooch.