Friday, January 15, 2016

hafiz: "you left a thousand women crazy"

Beloved,
Last Time,
When you walked through the city
So beautiful and so naked,

You left a thousand women crazy
And impossible to live with.

You left a thousand married men
Confused about their gender.

Children ran from their classrooms,
And teachers were glad you came.

And the sun tried to break out
Of its royal cage in the sky
And at last, and at last,
Lay its Ancient Love at Your feet.

Daniel Ladinsky, I Heard God Laughing: Renderings of Hafiz (Sufism Reoriented: 2000), 93. Adapted from Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (The Crossroad Publishing Company: 2003), 135-138.