Daniel Ladinsky

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We Are Like Lutes

This is, to me, a wonderful, sweet little Hafiz poem as it appears in a couple of my books, and think you can listen to it for free on this link. The verse goes (that I just now switched the gender in):

We are like lutes, once held by God.

Being away from Her warm body 

fully explains our constant yearning!

      —Hafiz

And my Hafiz work in general (and the number of Hafiz poems-renderings I have written), came up yesterday with some people which is some 5,000. Most of those are still unpublished and still in a rough-unfinished (to my mind) working form.

And they said: "Whose poems are those?”

And I replied: "I would say they are a lot, a lot more Hafiz's and God's than mine. And I have literally seen the profound, astounding foundation-source of them— which was the Burning Bush, plus a whole bunch. I am just the packhorse that helped them get into this world. 

“I still have some 10,000 unpublished poems; but a big part of those are a free style haiku. Yeah, I am just an old monkey now, with a big backpack, still swinging between some trees with some golden bananas, in wanting to help feed. Otherwise, I would have to be some kind of a genius to have written those 10,000 poems (and can seemingly just keep writing). And I know, I know, I know I ain't that— any kind of Albert Einstein! Buddha pinched my fanny and I jumped into the sky. Who wouldn't then? There has just been some very wild, blessed physics going on with my pen."

This is a lovely cd, one can download for a few bucks. The cd was a lifetime gift to the Lama Foundation, and all proceeds go directly to them to help with some specific good causes, like planting fruit trees & raising bees. I have never made a penny from it. 

And a great thanks to several others who also gave freely of their time and talents. All the poems on this cd came from my Penguin books, you can see on this website; this Danny one, my sweet agent, Melissa, created for me. She is a gem; and such great help to my work. And helped toooo get this cd across the finish line. And it is the only publication (so far) where one can hear my voice—on a couple cuts— if ya wanted.