If It Is Not Too Dark
Go for a walk, if it is not too dark.
Get some fresh air, try to smile.
Say something kind
To a safe-looking stranger, if one happens by.
Always exercise your heart's knowing.
You might as well attempt something real
Along this path:
Take your spouse or lover into your arms
The way you did when you first met.
Let tenderness pour from your eyes
The way the Sun gazes warmly on the earth.
Play a game with some children.
Extend yourself to a friend.
Sing a few ribald songs to your pets and plants -
Why not let them get drunk and wild!
Let's toast
Every rung we've climbed on Evolution's ladder.
Whisper, "I love you! I love you!"
To the whole mad world.
Let's stop reading about God -
We will never understand Him.
Jump to your feet, wave your fists,
Threaten and warn the whole Universe
That your heart can no longer live
Without real love!
-Hafiz”
My heart only wants to live with REAL love,
REAL reciprocation,
real willingness,
REAL caring,
shared decision making,
real respect,
and REAL empathy.
“What is some of you favorite poetry?” is the question in 12 days journal #230. I am really excited to read both the journal AND the comments that get left here on the journal, oh how I love poetry.
Oh! I love Hafiz! I read him every single night. And if I've had a particularly sad dream I'll read him in the morning too. Sometimes I swear he whispers the perfect words right to my soul.
ReplyDeleteNeeding A Mirror
ReplyDeleteYour
Eye
Is so wise
It keeps turning, turning
Needing to touch
Beauty.
It keeps turning,
Needing to find a mirror
That
Will caress you
As I.
-Hafiz
After Making Love We Hear Footsteps
ReplyDeleteFor I can snore like a bullhorn
or play loud music
or sit up talking with any reasonably sober Irishman
and Fergus will only sink deeper
into his dreamless sleep, which goes by all in one flash,
but let there be that heavy breathing
or a stifled come-cry anywhere in the house
and he will wrench himself awake
and make for it on the run - as now, we lie together,
after making love, quiet, touching along the length of our bodies,
familiar touch of the long-married,
and he appears - in his baseball pajamas, it happens,
the neck opening so small
he has to screw them on, which one day may make him wonder
about the mental capacity of baseball players -
and flops down between us and hugs us and snuggles himself to sleep,
his face gleaming with satisfaction at being this very child.
In the half darkness we look at each other
and smile
and touch arms across his little, startling muscled body -
this one whom habit of memory propels to the ground of his making,
sleeper only the mortal sounds can sing awake,
this blessing love gives again into our arms.
Galway Kinnell
You should hear him read it live. I have it on a recording. It's beautiful.