All images created by Rebekah Marshall’s prompts using AI on Gencraft.com website.

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 5:

Here I am

&

Over there

The idle know-it-all

Some thoughts:

What a mischievous way to address the true, vulnerable, real self vs. the ego. The contrast is embarrassingly telling when I look back on situations in my past that were filled with hubris and arrogance. I thought I knew the answers to things of which I had no experience. I must have been insufferable at times. I probably still am. And how comforting to know that Hafiz, the wise mystic poet was aware of the same dichotomy within himself. Now, how to silence the idle know-it-all so I can open myself to learning what I do not know.

My Poem 5:

It is so easy to look at this and that
and know exactly how it should have been.
The answers are obvious in hindsight,
though reality does not have a back test mode.

In trading, being half-right is impressive.
Many a winning strategist lives off that.
Presence, here, with my whole self,
is what brings peace and vanquishes foolishness.

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