Mitra captured and killed the sacred bull,
From whose blood all earthly life sprang.
Did you know that the Romans came within an inch
Of adopting Mitraism as the official religion
Of their empire, instead of Christianity?
Tell me, Mitra, are you a goddess in disguise?”
She smiles sardonically. “My mother says I act like a goddess,
But she is not giving me a compliment—now tell me your name.”
“Hafez,” answers Hafez,
She squints skeptically. “Hafez? Are you teasing me?”
“No! My name is really Hafez,
As much as the poet Hafez’s name is really Hafez.
“Beh haghe harf-haye nashnofteh!” she says.
(I now, the unbelievable has come true before my own eyes.)
Hafez is delighted: “You speak Persian!”
“My parents spoke Persian at home,” she says with a shrug,
“And I was taught to read and write it when I was only four.”
Hafez is astonished: “At four? You are a prodigy.”
“No,” she says, “I’m just a girl with smart parents—
Smart in everything but their love for each other.”
The girl’s maturity impresses Hafez,
As much as the body inside her uniform impresses him.
“Just how old are you, Mitra?”
She is defiant: “What does my age have to do with our reading poems?”
Hafez raises her hand and kisses it gently. “Sorry—
Even if you were a baby we would read them,
Even if I was six hundred years old.”
As he says this his eyes fight not to notice
Her sweet-pear breasts as they press against her cotton blouse.
“If I were a baby? I will graduate this spring—with all A’s—
And enter Columbia next fall on a full scholarship.
And I can play the harp, and I study ballet,
With a woman who once was the toast of St. Petersburg.”
Hafez tilts his head playfully. “Mitra! How old are you?”
“Okay,” she hisses, pretending to be angry, “I’m fourteen—
Which is the same age the great Hafez wished his lovers to be!”
Hafez trembles inside. “How do you know that?”
She taps the Divan on her knees, as if she was tapping Hafez’s heart.
Mitra’s words, Mitra’s voice, Mitra’s spring scent,
Mitra’s supple lips, Mitra’s knowing eyes,
Mitra’s audacious and curious spirit,
Ignite an ancient smoldering in Hafez.
“You, you, you …” he stammers,
As if trapped between the cliffs of happiness and uncertainty.
“You, what?” she wonders, her heart drumming the rages of love.
Hafez catches the last of his breath,
Before his lungs collapse and his head explodes.
“Read, Mitra! Read!” he pleads.
Cool and triumphant, she demands answers from him:
“Aren’t you going to tell me anything about you?
How old you are? Whether you like your work?”
Hafez can barely speak: “I am old enough
To have a taxi driver’s license. Now read! Please!”
So Mitra opens the Divan, and says:
“I will read you the first lines in Hafez’s book,
Though it is doubtful they are the first words he composed:
Arise wine-bearer, oh rise and swing that cup of wine to me.
Love seems easy at first, then come the difficulties!”
Hafez looks at the pages, spread sensuously like the petals of a rose.
Mitra is speaking in English,
But the words written on the page are in Persian.
Mitra continues to read:
“With the hope that the breeze will unveil her lovely face, and
Untie the knots in her hair, freeing her perfumed curls
Whose absence has been the cause of so much grief.
Tint your prayer rug with the forbidden wine
If the wise old Magi tells you so,
Since the truth-seeker knows well the pilgrim’s rule of etiquette!
How can I have the time of my life,
Enthralled in the bosom of my beloved,
If bells scream incessantly: ‘Bind your belongings to depart!’
With the black night storming and the wolfish waves frightening,
And the eddying whirlpools devouring,
How could the light-hearted on the shore
Know our imperiled fate at sea?”
Mitra stops reading and, drinking in the cabby’s face, says:
“Hafez Jaan, let us take a Hafez faal.”
The word Jaan, meaning my life, my soul, my beloved, sets Hafez on fire.
But those other words puzzle him: “What is a Hafez faal, Mitra Jaan?”
His puzzlement puzzles her: “You don’t know what a Hafez faal is?
Even though your name is Hafez?”
Hafez cannot tell her that he’s been dead for centuries,
Disguised as a cactus for some of them.
He can only shrug and say, “I know not what I know not,
Nor do I know why I know not.
I know that faal is fortune telling, but I know not about Hafez’ faal.”
Mitra shakes the dizziness from her head.
“Okay, Hafez, enough of the know-not stuff! A Hafez faal is this:
If you wish to know the future or make a difficult decision,
You refer to the Divan for help, saying:
‘Hafez-e Shirazi, you know every secret,
I swear you to your Divan to tell me what I must know.’
Then you randomly open the book, and flip to the preceding page,
And read the ode you find there.”
“You do?” asks Hafez, astonished by this strange use of his poems.
(How could I predict the future of others, he thinks,
When my own future was such a blur?)
Mitra nods. “For centuries kings have made war and peace by faal.
Marriages have been arranged by faal.
Journeys, cures, even business decisions have been made by faal.
Even today many people believe
That the Divan predicts and guides well.”
Hafez is filled with wonder, and embarrassment, saying,
“I cannot believe that Hafez is so revered, and so trusted,
Especially about things he surely never meant to be entrusted with!”
Mitra is playful: “And how do you know that?”
Hafez answers quickly: “Just guessing, Mitra Jaan.”
As they both giggle, Mitra opens the Divan,
And flips the page, and then puts the book
Into Hafez’s outstretched hands.
“Read my faal for me,” she says.
Hafez glances at the first line of the ode,
And then gently closes the book.
“That was my faal!” Mitra protests. “You lost it!”
“No, I did not,” Hafez says.
He points to his heart and recites:
“The lonely days and nights when my lover was gone are gone,
And my faal shined bright, since Sirius was placed right,
And everything turned into a delight.
And the flirting, and the showing off of autumn,
Finally ended with the first zephyr of spring—thanks be to God.”
“Watch out for the kite!” Mitra squeals.
Before she can finish her warning,
A huge green kite crashes at Hafez’s feet.
He takes a long breath to replenish his startled lungs,
Then picks up the kite and with his eyes
Follows its long wriggle of yellow yarn
To a smiling Puerto Rican boy standing far away on a grassy hillock.
7
Ask Me Not About Love
Professor Pirooz finishes his last class
And walks to his apartment, happy that a long day is over,
Hoping that Hafez is just as tired as he is,
And won’t want to talk all night about the mysteries of the modern world.
The elevator deposits Pirooz at his door,
And the key in his hand commands it to open.
He sees Hafez sitting cross-legged on the kitchen table
Eating a half-moon of melon while reading a book.
Inside he finds a Puerto Rican boy curled on his sofa,
Tattered kite resting in his baggy-jeans lap,
Dog droppings stuck on the bottom of his shoes.
Hafez welcomes him home: “Look who I found flying a kite!”
Pirooz, of course, does not recognize the boy.
On the streets of New York there are thousands of such boys
With cappuccino skin and Caribbean smiles.
Says Pirooz with a scowl: “I don’t care who he is,
Just as long as he takes his dirty shoes off my couch.”
Hafez throws open his arms: “It is our Rumi, Pirooz!
Here to look after me just as I came to look after you!”
Pirooz is surprised and not surprised—
After all, if Rumi can be a green cactus why not a brown boy?
He also is embarrassed by his inhospitable demand.
“Welcome to my humble home, Mowlana,” he says.
“And please, if you wish, keep your shoes where they are.”
Rumi laughs and turns himself into a man
With white beard, sharp eyes, and immaculate soles.
Pirooz had hoped to spend a quiet evening listening to music,
Reading somebody’s novel, yawning himself to a peaceful sleep.
But now with both Rumi and Hafez in his apartment,
He is excited and awake: “So you were flying a kite, Mowlana?”
Hafez eagerly answers for Rumi: “He is a sneak, isn’t he?
Spying on me with my new love!”
“I was not spying,” Rumi insists,
“Merely enjoying my self while you were enjoying your self.”
Hafez laughs at this and bites into another slice of melon.
“Once in heaven,” he tells Pirooz,
“I found our dear master watching a pool of bathing virgins.
‘They are beautiful, aren’t they?’ I said.
And he answered, with the straightest of faces,
‘I was worried that one of them may drown.’
So I guess Rumi was watching me in the park because
He was afraid that I might drown.
Well, you showed up too late, Rumi Jaan—I have already drowned!
Drowned in new love by my new love, my perfect Mitra!”
Hafez recounts how fate put Mitra in his taxi,
Leaving out not a word, look or heartbeat between them,
Then suddenly he begins to sing:
“When I saw her tempting curls I felt my heart curling, too!
Yes, I am in love again, my love curling and curling, too!”
As he sings he leaps higher than Barishnykov,
More graceful than a nightingale just freed into spring,
Landing in front of the bewildered eyes of Rumi and Pirooz.
“Rumi Jaan, Pirooz Jaan,” he pleads,
“Rejoice for me and rejoice with me,
And praise what is most worthy of praise—love!
My midnight dream ode is now a daylight reality!”
Pirooz is tingling. “Hafez Jaan,” he cries,
“I know this ode of yours by heart.
But please recite it for me, so that I, too, can realize a dream.”
Hafez is filled with love and appreciation.
“Yes! Of course I will recite it for you!
And for Rumi and for me!
I will even recite it for God, to remind Him
That the wishes of others are expecting His attention.”
And so Hafez recites, his unworldly voice filling the apartment:
“Her lips dewy and her curls tangled, drunk, giggling and singing,
Her blouse half open—holding a jug of wine,
Her narcissus eyes sparkling and her lips alluring,
She slipped into my bed last night at midnight,
And brought her lips to my ear and whispered soulfully:
‘Are you awake my aggrieved old lover?’
A lover who is tendered such a midnight drink
Believes not in love if he does not worship wine.
So ask me not if the wine was from heaven or earth,
Intoxicating or not.
I drank what she poured into my cup, since
The grinning wine and her tempting curls would seduce anyone,
And Hafez, too, to break his vows of repentance.”
When Hafez is finished, Rumi and Pirooz run to him,
And the three hug and become one.
To celebrate the ancient poet’s new love
Jiggling bottles of wine surface on Pirooz’s coffee table,
As if out of nowhere.
The three Persians drink glass after glass,
Drowning themselves in the New World and the New Times.
Pirooz goes to the corner and rescues his tar,
Blowing years of dust off its two bowls and six starved strings.
He holds it in his arms like a baby and begins to strum,
Breaking his vows to his father never to play for anyone
Except for himself or his family,
For fear of being considered an entertainer,
Then a thing of disgrace in his family.
But tonight everyone is his family.
Even these two ghosts are his family.
Was he not a student of Hafez and Rumi?
Was he not saved from death by Hafez and Rumi?
Pirooz plays and sings, exhorting:
“Let the angels of dance dance
And let the angels of music make music.
Dance Hafez, dance and dance and dance.
Dance for Rumi, dance for Mitra and for me.
Dance for all Persians in diaspora,
Dance for all history in diaspora.”
Hafez does begin to dance, clapping his hands over his head
The way macho flamenco dancers do.
Pirooz, filled with smiles, continues his song:
“Dance and dance and dance, Hafez,
And let the fires of love,
Ignited by truth, forgiveness, and happiness,
Induce everyone and everything to dance.
Let the world know that a new love is born
From the withered womb of the past and
The supple womb of the future.
Ashes to ashes, cactus to man,
A new man reinvigorated by new love!
Praise be to the new love of Hafez and Mitra!”
Now Rumi is dancing, too, and Pirooz is still plucking,
So furiously that the instrument seems to cry out:
“I’m in love, too! I’m burning and I’m hurting, too!
Hold me and play with me and let me dardedel with you!”
Rumi hears the tar’s plea and begins to sing:
“Love is a sea with no shores, domed by a bubble of foam for sky.
Without love every motion dies and the wheel of heaven stops,
And existence becomes inanimate …
Life begets love and love begets life.
It is love that transforms the inorganic to plant,
And lures the plants to sacrifice themselves,
To be gifted with the spirit of a man!”
“Tell us more about love,” the tar begs.
And Rumi obliges:
“When a man and a woman unite into one,
Together a new being they become.
And this I and this Us are made up to quench
The false thirst
from self-adoration.
Or else, all the pronouns—I, you, we and them—
Become submerged in God, the beloved of all true lovers.”
Now everyone has stopped dancing, and Pirooz has stopped playing.
“I am a modern man,” says Pirooz,
“Who needs data and datum, bits and bytes of information.
Tell me more about this Mitra of yours, Hafez,
So I can feel the love in your heart inside my heart!”
Hafez clutches his breast and bubbles one of his famous odes:
“Ask me not, my beloved, how I’ve endured the pains of love.
Ask me not how I’ve swallowed your absence—the bitterest bane.
Ask me not.
“Throughout the world I’ve journeyed,
And at the end I’ve found a lover so dazzling
That I can’t tell how, that I can’t tell why.
Ask me not how the tears pour down from my longing eyes,
As I dream, reaching for her presence.
Ask me not why.
“With my own ears I heard last night her words,
So magic that I beg you to ask me not what they were.
Ask me not what.
“Why do you gaze at me and bite your lips to silence me?
I’ve tasted such ruby lips, but ask me not how sweet.
Without her in my humble nest I’ve suffered such heartaches
That I can’t tell what or how, for it is so painful to recount.
Ask me not how.
“Although I’ve been lost in the path of love,
Yet with love I’ve ascended to such peaks that I can’t tell how high.
Ask me not how high.”
Pirooz, impatient for facts, tries to coax Hafez from his ambiguity:
“True, Mitra is magnificent beyond description,
But tell us something tangible, for instance, what does she do?”
Hafez, so filled with his love that he sees no reason to answer,
Nevertheless answers: “She is a schoolgirl.”
Pirooz feels suddenly dizzy, as if suddenly hit over the head with
The twin hammers of dread and disaster.
“A schoolgirl, Hafez? How old did you say she is?”
Hafez beams: “Fourteen—the ideal age!”
Pirooz covers his mouth and sucks air through his fingers,
Grunting, “My God! My God! My God!”
Hafez ignores Pirooz’s worried face
And continues his praise for the girl he loves:
“And she is so smart, Pirooz Jaan, so mature!
The school has jumped her ahead three years.
She will graduate next spring, and
Enter the same university where you teach,
Every penny of her tuition paid in full by her uncanny genius.”
Dardedel Page 7