I am reading Hafiz’s Little Book of Life, poetry by Hafiz-e Shirazi. He is challenging me to become more comfortable with ambiguity. I will share his poem and some of my thoughts on his poem (sometimes with the help of experts when the concepts are too hard for me), followed by a poem and some art inspired by his poem.

Hafiz’s Poem 39:

Forgive the warring of the 72 nations
Not having seen the truth
They’ve gone down the road of fantasy

Some thoughts:

This poem took a little digging to learn about the number 72 in mystical Sufism and other Islamic cultural contexts. Apparently, it was a known phrase representing division or splits that people would have recognized as symbolic, rather than literal. The idea of 72 sects or religious groups became shorthand for fragmentation of what was once unified in hadith literature and early Islamic traditions. For Hafiz to mention 72 nations was to at once tap into phrasing his audience would recognize as representative of all the human groups of the world.

What is even more interesting to me is that he is not condemning all these nations for their shortsightedness but asking for their forgiveness. “They know not what they do.” They are caught in “the illusion” rather than recognizing the truth of peace and harmony. All the nations of the earth come from the same source. We all return to the same source after death. Why not live united in kindness, shared humanity, and communal peace during our short time in this reality? Such a question we could pose to the 197 nations in existence on our planet right now.

My Poem 39:

Can you truly not see
the shimmering promise
of a peaceful tomorrow?

The glow of city lights lies just over the horizon
where nation shall not rise up against nation.

This morass of darkness and despair
is not the truth you seek in your waiting
but merely an illusory nonsensical hellscape.

Continue to put one foot
in front of the other until you reach
the promised land of unity and peace,
where bees drip honey into mouths
open only to speak kind words,
and dams nurse calves languidly,
without fear of being separated by war.

Flowers are grown along every path purely
for making friendship wreaths and decorative
garlands to be given away free of cost or consequence
because nothing is required nor demanded of citizens
in this place beyond breath and awareness and love.

Hafiz. Hafiz’s Little Book of Life. Translated by Erfan Mojib and Gary Gach, Hampton Roads Publishing, 2023.