I've picked up my study of Farsi again, and, looking back over old notes, found a poem by Hafiz that I translated. It's one that my late Farsi teacher, Mali, found as an augury for me in the Divan of Hafiz. Mali was being my little green bird, so to speak. Sometimes on an Iranian street one may come upon a diviner with a book of Hafiz's poems and a bird that's trained to pick out an augury for a client, a verse or an ode that will hint at what the day, or the week, or the month or year, or the life, will bring. A green bird is thought to have special significance as a spirit harbinger.
This is my augury from the time while I was researching, writing, praying, dreaming about Tahirih -- in my own very free and in-process translation. I translated it back when Mali found it, and didn't understand at all how it related to me, at the time. Now I must say, it has come true, is coming true.
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| My green bird, Mali |
yet I must picture you or die.
I'm the north wind, driven by your cry;
your shadow's royal stature stirs my
unfledged wings to dare to fly.
(Will I survive today and fly
into night, that curve of one of your curls?)
By fire my heart is purified --
for just your mantle's swirl and sigh
I cut -- I cleave my heart -- I die.
-- from the Divan of Hafiz
I would never have thought of myself that way, as a mystic lover, rending my heart for the sake of understanding and writing about a truly great mystic lover, Tahirih. And part of me still says it's nonsense. Is that an eternal tug-of-war that all seekers suffer?
