Dardedel

by Manoucher Parvin

  But even by some of my students, who,

  Thinking that I am a bowl of acid, keep their distance

  Lest I spill my freedom on them,

  And burn holes in their expensive dreams.”

  The sky turns gray and it begins to sprinkle.

  They walk west toward a coffee house called The Peacock,

  Where the espresso, Pirooz promises, is very good.

  “Tell me,” Pirooz asks as the drops tickle their ears,

  “What is or who is Rumi’s God?”

  Says Hafez: “Rumi is not here to defend or define his beliefs,

  But whichever way he faces, he sees the beautiful face of God.

  Not the God everyone knows, but the God no one knows.”

  Pirooz understands, asking,

  “And you, Hafez Jaan? Just what are your beliefs?”

  The poet grows thoughtful, saying:

  “I know Abraham and all the prophets.

  I know Erfan, the Sufi knowledge of the self and the soul.

  I know all the philosophies and metaphysics of my time.

  I even know some astronomy and physics.

  I have studied Pantheism, Mitraism, et cetera, et cetera.

  But I am a Rend—I understand them all

  But I am not convinced by any unconditionally!”

  They pass shops selling flowers and shops selling fruit,

  Shops selling wine and shops selling bread,

  Selling sunglasses, hats, black shiny underwear and shoes,

  Everything but conscientiousness or consciousness.

  “We must start a new religion,” says Pirooz,

  As they duck into The Peacock. “We will call it Rendism.

  It will be a congregation that strives to know more and more,

  So it can believe less and less, thus understanding more and more.

  Transcendence through skepticism!

  Our prophet will be Truth! Our heaven Liberty!

  Our prayer will be a single word—justice!

  And our God will be Love!”

  Hafez joyfully claps his hands as if at a play, saying,

  “Yes! Yes! our God will be Love,

  The most perfect Trinity whether blasphemous or not!

  First, carnal love, the skin-deep love for a beautiful mate.

  Second, the ideal and unattainable love,

  Which combines the beauty of appearances

  With the hidden beauty of the mind and soul.

  Third, and highest, love for creation and for the creator,

  Who makes possible all other loves and all other lovers.”

  They sit in The Peacock for hours,

  Drinking double espressos as if they were goblets of wine,

  Talking about the magical city pressing around them,

  The tall buildings, the screaming sirens and screaming lights,

  The silent screams of the lonely and abandoned.

  They talk about the people and the way they rush about

  To make money and more money for the corporate deities

  Sitting in the highest offices atop the highest towers.

  They talk about the city’s incredible energy, its frantic inertia,

  A city in constant motion without ever moving,

  A hive full of bees, a hill full of ants, a school of minnows

  Fighting to survive in a shrinking puddle.

  Pirooz laments: “Had I known about the tardigrade

  Before I was conceived and born, I would have asked God

  To make me one of those microscopic beings.”

  Hafez, as jumpy with caffeine as Pirooz, asks,

  “Tardigrade digeh chee-yeh?” (What, pray tell, is a tardigrade?)

  Pirooz, his fast words tripping over his quivering lips, explains:

  “Tardigrades are microscopic invertebrates with ambling gaits.

  Called water bears—the invisible sort—they live roly-poly lives

  Among the algae in sweet lakes and bitter seas.

  They can be zapped with the worst and yet laugh and survive:

  Chilled to degrees cold even to Antarctica, boiled to scorching heats,

  Put in a vacuum with nothing to eat,

  Smashed by immense hydrostatics as powerful as cannon balls blasting,

  Tardigrades survive it all, as if joy-riding on a carousel.”

  Hafez, brows arched high, observes, “They are very tough little bugs!”

  Pirooz’s head is bobbing like the head of a poppy in the wind.

  “The tardigrade is a cunning genius who shrinks himself

  To a suspended animation when in danger,

  Then blows himself up once the trouble is gone,

  To resume life gracefully as if no harm was intended and no harm done.”

  Pirooz now thumps on the table with his fist,

  As question after question swarms in his mind.

  “Where is our genius and astuteness, that creative consciousness

  That turned us from monkeys into men?

  Why are we creating a world where only the tardigrade can survive?”

  Asks Hafez: “What is this consciousness you speak of so often?”

  Pirooz calms himself and answers: “What is consciousness?

  Your question does not surprise me, Hafez Jaan,

  For while consciousness is as nosy as a cat’s nose

  When it comes to minding the business of others,

  It remains quite quiet about its own mind.

  But for you, dearest Hafez, I will give your question a try:

  Consciousness is awareness of the inner self and the outer self.

  One can be more conscious or less conscious.

  The attributes of consciousness

  Are remembering, feeling, knowing, reasoning, choosing, and creating.

  Self-consciously humans expand their consciousness—

  This is H-consciousness.

  Monkeys fight, flee, feed, frolic, use tools

  And arrange their social order—they have M-consciousness.

  Computers drink electricity, reason and remember, and continually

  Seduce humans to make them better—they have C-consciousness.

  Trees long ago solved the mystery of flight with pollen and seeds,

  And seem to get along happily without propellors or wings—

  They fall asleep in the fall, then wake up in spring—

  To support by photosynthesis the consciousness of all living things.

  They have T-consciousness.

  Stones have history but no memory, they are present but passive—

  Thus they have NO-consciousness.”

  Hafez has enjoyed the professor’s short lecture:

  “It was nice of you to put humans first and monkeys second.”

  Answers Pirooz: “Perhaps that is just my own human bias,

  Or perhaps we truly deserve top billing.

  What is true, and sad, is that human consciousness

  Too often is contaminated with confusions and falsehoods,

  While monkeys seem free of these self-inflicted maladies.

  But man can alter human nature and consciousness consciously.

  And most amazing, Hafez Jaan,

  Nature is more imaginative than consciousness,

  Since things discovered are things never imagined.”

  “Hoo!” gasps Hafez, “I never thought that

  Such a dark subject could be illuminated so white!”

  Pirooz’s head is shaking back and forth.

  “Consciousness is rarely white, Hafez Jaan.

  It is mostly gray, the color of the brain—

  Which performs many tasks behind our conscious backs:

  The truth is, our consciousness is forever slacking off,

  So that our subconscious, by default, steps forward and rules.

  And so, one is forever caught wondering:

  ‘What on earth have I just done?’

  Or ‘Did I really do this?’
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  As bad as these lapses are for us as individuals,

  They are multiplied six billion fold each day.

  So the collective subconscious spoils

  While our collective consciousness sleeps!”

  Hafez is nodding his head: “The subconscious is a nuisance, all right.

  You would think we could control it better!”

  Answers Pirooz: “Unfortunately our brains are at its mercy.

  Mother Nature wires our synapses for safety and sex,

  Then the world enters our brain surreptitiously at birth,

  And wielding carrots and sticks,

  It stuffs and wires other synapses with even more sub-consciousness,

  Without a word of explanation as to what, how, and why.

  And unless one becomes aware of these secret stuffs,

  One remains a programmed machine of nature,

  Of a given time and place.”

  “Do you have a place to stay?” Pirooz asks as Hafez drives him home.

  “I have only one bed, but you are welcome to it.”

  And so the two Persians, the poet and the professor,

  Sleepy, but too full of espresso to sleep,

  Ride the elevator to Pirooz’s apartment,

  Ten stories above the still vibrating street.

  Pirooz shows Hafez the bed, and then,

  Taking a pillow and a blanket, curls up on the sofa

  And listens to the rapid thumping of his intoxicated heart.

  “Hafez Jaan!” he calls out. “I’m so glad you came to New York!”

  Answers Hafez: “One lost soul looking out for another, Pirooz Jaan.”

  6 Faal

  The taxi dispatcher doesn’t know that this Hafez is the Hafez,

  The living ghost Hafez, the legendary poet Hafez.

  The dispatcher only knows that this Hafez

  Is an eager immigrant with the rudimentary ability

  To grip a steering wheel and stomp a brake,

  And reach his hand over the backseat for a fare.

  Yes, to the dispatcher this Hafez is just a cabby, in a city of cabbies,

  Pinballs to slap from street to street, bell to bell,

  Collecting fares, fares, and more fares.

  Yet, this Hafez loves being dispatched,

  Loves the search for named and numbered streets,

  To help weary people make their way.

  His taxi is but a poem, a vehicle for transporting souls.

  And so every morning after Pirooz leaves for his classroom,

  Hafez hurries to his classroom, the street,

  And helps his students, his passengers, find their way.

  This afternoon the dispatcher sends Hafez

  To a private high school with high iron walls,

  To deliver a girl to her high-rise home,

  In a high-rent neighborhood on the high east side.

  Hafez is running late, which is no surprise.

  Everyone is rushing in New York, feeling late in New York,

  Even as they glance at their watches like head-bobbing sparrows,

  Looking up, checking for dangers, before spearing another seed.

  Hafez finds the school and bumps into the curb,

  Dazzled as he spots his fare—the most beautiful of girls,

  The freest of spirits caged in a school uniform.

  He honks and honks his horn.

  With her backpack stuffed full and more books in her arms,

  She rushes toward his cab as if captured by the North Star.

  The curious autumn wind scatters her curly black hair as she runs,

  And lifts her pleated school-girl skirt like an umbrella opening up,

  Revealing her tapered thighs and the scarlet panties hugging her hips.

  As she runs and pushes at her skirt, the books tumble from her arms.

  And what her panties cover screams to Hafez: “I am the will of God.

  Even the wind revealing me is the will of God.”

  Hafez jumps from the taxi to help her gather her books.

  She is already on her knees—oh, what knees—when he drops to his.

  People, sparrowing their watches, rush around them indifferently,

  Anxious not to miss their appointments.

  “Let me help you,” Hafez manages to say.

  “Thank you,” she says shyly, the music of her voice dovetailing

  With her words into a song only God could have composed.

  As they exchange the last book, the tips of their fingers touch.

  Hafez feels that he is melting, a slow and sensuous melt,

  That candles melt when the maidens of Shiraz read from his Divan.

  Suddenly he is shocked, deep to the roots of his neurons.

  The book passing between them is his Divan!

  (Those touching fingers: his aflame, hers trembling.

  Who knows why or how?

  It may be fear, it may be joy, it may be both.

  Those touching eyes: his bittersweet chocolate,

  Hers the turquoise of the bluest sea,

  Hugging and then kissing and then making love,

  By the ethics of DNA, or the god of Synchronicity,

  Or the god of unbelievable stories and happenings.)

  Hafez opens the cab door for the girl, and when she is inside,

  Closes it gently, as if tucking her in a blanket.

  “You have my address?” she asks when he is behind the wheel.

  Hafez turns, and seeing his face floating in her eyes, replies,

  “Yes, yes, yes, yes—”

  (Why is it that the great master of words

  Can say no more than yes and yes and yes and yes?

  Why is it that the angels of love flip and flop with joy

  And rejoice with the music of his yes and yes and yes?

  And why is it that the stars join hands and dance and celebrate?

  Why is it he can only answer yes and yes and yes and yes?)

  Hafez finds the right gear and the taxi plunges forward,

  As though propelled by the sound of horns,

  Protesting its vigorous advance into the grinding traffic.

  His eyes spend more time in the mirror than on the street.

  And seeing his Divan resting on her unreal lap,

  Hafez is reminded of the ode that once dripped from the tip of his pen:

  The fragrance of your curly hair will keep me intoxicated forever.

  Your magical eyes put me in a trance,

  Ruining me in the mystery of their lust!

  The wind and I are both hopelessly lost: I in your luscious eyes,

  And the wind in pursuit of your fragrant hair, running from its reach!

  Somehow he remembers her address and somehow he finds it.

  She smiles at him all the way to the revolving door

  That envelopes her and spins her out of sight.

  The next day Hafez does not wait for the dispatcher to dispatch him—

  He dispatches himself and waits until the girl emerges from school.

  Overnight she has grown even more beautiful.

  Again his Divan is among her books.

  Again when she asks him if he knows the address,

  He answers yes and yes and yes and yes and so it goes day after day,

  Each day the cabby and the schoolgirl

  Finding a way for their fingers to touch and their eyes to make love,

  Letting their silence say what they dare not say.

  Then on the fifth day, when the girl slides into the taxi, she says,

  “Take me to Central Park.”

  Her demand takes Hafez by surprise. “Not home?”

  She smiles at his widening eyes,

  At the handsome face with the great mustache.

  “It’s too nice a day to go home,” she says.

  Hafez protests: “But aren’t your parents expecting you?”

  Answers the girl: “The only things expecting me are the T
V

  And the leftovers in the refrigerator.”

  Hafez has only been in this modern city for a week,

  Yet he has been watching TV and knows what she means.

  Still, her request frightens him:

  “I don’t want to get you in trouble—or for that matter me!”

  The girl leans forward and in a whisper says,

  “Take me to Central Park, and join me.

  I wish to read to you from the Divan of Hafez, the nightingale of Persia.

  I want you to know Hafez as I do.”

  Hafez knows he should decline her invitation:

  It is one thing for a spirit to save a dispirited professor,

  And quite another for a spirit to fall in love with a spirited girl.

  But her little hide-and-seek smiles are so full of expectation,

  And her perfect skin radiates a serendipitous light,

  Tightly engulfing her body like the finest silk.

  “Yes I will join you,” he says.

  “I like poetry surrounded by the fall’s falling leaves,

  Dancing their Dervish dance while I’m ascending!”

  Soon they are sitting on a bench by a pond filled with quacking ducks.

  Perhaps they are quacking one of Hafez’s songs:

  In the morning the bird of the garden

  Greeted a new flower: “Don’t be so coy and flirting,

  In this garden where many blossoms blossom just like you!”

  The flower laughed and replied: “The truth hurts me not,

  But no lover ever spoke so harshly to the beloved!”

  Hafez feels the girl’s hand over his and hears her giggle.

  “Wake up—where are you?” she asks.

  “High in the sky,” he answers. “Waiting for you to bring me down.”

  Then he smiles as shyly as she is smiling.

  “But tell me, first, what is your name?”

  “My name is Mitra.”

  “Like me, you are a Persian?”

  “Sort of—my mother was a Peace Corps volunteer.

  On a ski slope near Tehran she met my father, a Persian,

  With his backside on the slippery ground!

  She helped him up, the way you helped me with my books.

  They are divorced now.

  And I live with my mother, a very busy corporate climber,

  In this very greasy town to climb,

  While my father is busy teaching physics three thousand miles away.”

  Mitra smiles sweetly until her loneliness has passed, then asks:

  “How did you guess I was Persian? I have no accent whatsoever.”

  Says Hafez: “Your name is your accent, taken from the myth of Mitra,

  The old Persian god of goodness and light.