Read an Excerpt
The Angels Knocking on the Tavern Door
Thirty Poems of Hafez
How Blame Has Been Helpful
We are drunken ecstatics who have let our hearts
Go to the wild. We are musty scholars
Of love, and old friends of the wine cup.
People have aimed the arrow of guilt a hundred times
In our direction. With the help of our Darling's eyebrow,
Blame has been a blessing, and has opened all our work.
Oh, dark-spotted flower, you endured pain all night,
Waiting for the wine of dawn; I am that poppy
That was born with the burning spot of suffering.
If our Zoroastrian master has become disgusted
With our way of repentance, tell him, Go ahead,
Strain the wine. We are standing here with our heads down.
It is through you that our work goes on at all;
Oh, teacher of the way, please throw us a glance.
Let's be clear about it; we have fallen off the path.
Don't imagine us to be like the tulip, who is preoccupied
With its goblet shape; rather look at the dark
Spot of grief we have set on our scorched hearts.
"Hafez," you say, "what about all your intriguing colors
And ingenious fantasies?" Don't take our language seriously.
We are a clean slate on which nothing has been written.
The Angels Knocking on the Tavern Door
Thirty Poems of Hafez. Copyright © by Robert Bly. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.