Friday, July 24, 2009

QUOTE (POEM) FOR THE TIMES

"Even after all this time
the sun never says
to the earth
'You owe me.'

Look what happens
with a love like that.
It lights up the
whole sky."

—Hafiz (the 14th-Century Persian poet, from a new translataion by Mahmood Karimi-Hakak and Bill Wolak)

4 comments:

AlamedaTom said...

Nice!

~ Willy

Bob Berner said...

Dear Lal,
A huge number of poets could do well to look at this poem and see what can be done with a mere 29 words. Thanks for posting this.
Bob Berner

Harryn Studios said...

balanced ...

RJ Eskow said...

I'm pleased to see there's a new translation of Hafiz available. I had a lot of difficulty with the Daniel Ladinsky translations, which were all that seemed to be available in recent years.

Too much Ladinsky, not enough Hafiz ... and too much effort expended in being 'contemporary' in phrasing and idioms. Give the reader a little latitude to do that work for herself/himself.