' This Talking Rag '...

It
Was all
So clear this morning.

My mind and heart had never felt
More convinced:

There is only God,
A Great Wild
God.

But somehow I got yanked from
That annihilating
Realization

And can now appear again
As this wine-stained
Talking

Rag.



- Hafiz

"The Gift"
Translations by Daniel Ladinsky
Penguin/Arkana, 1999