KICK BACK AND SAY AHHH
I recently sent the below to a couple of people I’m involved with on some projects, and then got the thought this could be my next blog. What was sent is as follows, with some things taken out for relevance and a couple things added in. So tossing this out from my nest in the sky and from my prairie dog hole; those are my primary camping spots these days. And always thanks to any who like my blogs.
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The below is, to me, a perfect example of a close-to-perfect (whimsical, unique, and also serious) Hafiz rendering; how it can (to my mind) so: engage and give. And that engaging and giving has become a definition and goal of art to me.
I speak about that in a piece I wrote on Hafiz for the BBC, linked here. I think this BBC piece is a very significant article on Hafiz, and outlines, even documents as it were, something of Hafiz's extraordinary enduring value to the world. It’s also a good case in point of why I feel that Hafiz and Rumi are something of Carl Jung times ten, gone poet.
Hafiz and Rumi can be at times like sitting down with Buddha after hours in a bar, when the chat can get more real and gritty, and of a greater utility to the elite mind and heart.
As for that BBC article… Yeah, that is one of the great aspects and values of real art to me. That is: there is real utility in it, a physics that can affect, can help with a piece of the puzzle you are putting together, and thus make you more whole.
A little northern New Mexico newspaper solicits short articles from me once in a while to publish in their quarterly edition. And I just sent them part of this, and want to post it here as well. If this piece runs in that small-town mountain newspaper, it will be titled as shown here. And I love the new ending of this poem that has not been published before.
GOOD ADVICE FROM HAFIZ
Hafiz, the 14th century Persian poet, is considered one of the seven literary wonders of the world. Both Ralph Waldo Emerson and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe expressed that in different ways. And for the last century, and this century too, so far, I am the person most bringing Hafiz's name to the English speaking world via my several books now with Penguin Random House. The BBC once invited me to write a feature article on Hafiz, and some might find that very interesting, informative, and maybe even helpful.
I sometimes do rather wild renderings of Hafiz, feeling that can do him the most justice and show the general reader something of Hafiz's unique, beautiful range. Show the illumined poles that can be in one poem— playful surprises sometimes being a vital ingredient in his verse, fostering a bonding, just as having fun with some friends is so desirable.
Kick Back And Say Ahhhh
The mind wants to stop giving a shit about so
many things.
It wants to kick back and say Ahhhh more!
Not the kind of Ahhhh one might muster if a
doctor just stuck a forklift down your throat.
But think about it, there is a lot to a real
Ahhhh, and thus
you have your scouts out looking for 'them'
basically 24-7. Yep, even in your dreams.
'Them," of course refers to those Ahhhhhhhs
we love, and can get if
the beauty of a mountain or a bird smooches
us,
or we take their wonder, or the wonder of each
face we see ... into our heart for a minute.
Take the wonder of each face into your heart,
my dear, and next to it will be God.
—Hafiz, adapted and expanded from A Year With Hafiz