We Should Talk about This Problem
There is a Beautiful Creature
Living in a hole you have dug.
So at night
I set fruit and grains
And little pots of wine and milk
Beside your soft earthen mounds,
And I often sing.
But still, my dear,
You do not come out.
I have fallen in love with Someone
Who hides inside you.
We should talk about this problem---
Otherwise,
I will never leave you alone.
Commentary
Such a beguiling poem. It calls out to you with such patient, laughing tenderness that the proud and frightened creature somewhere inside lifts its small head in helpless confusion and wonder - this then the beginning of the end - of glittery-eyed guardedness and a long lack of faith. A fierce loneliness that must finally give way to love’s kindness too sweetly intentioned to be condescension. How scandalously fond I have grown of this Sufi poet-saint whose name is Hafiz - and to think we only just met. I like his willingness to confront the seeming stuck-ness of the situation with such a sly, reproachful twinkle. I like the gentle humour of the understated title suggestion: ‘We should talk about this problem.’ …And I particularly love the conclusion - for the caressing determination of its exquisite threat.
— pavi
Links
There’s a biography attached to Poem #447.
http://www.hafizonlove.com/ is a nicely done site with a lot of information
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From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.
atr_damia · 31 March 2005
Oh I love this poem, it is simply beautiful.
It speaks of an absolutely timeless ritual of wooing, and how often yo88u can fall in love with something because of it’s unattainable nature. At the same time it casts me back through the ages to every promised virgin-wife who has been blessed with a patient husband. This husband who has chosen her through love at first sight, or a single word. This husband that aches inside when she weeps on their wedding night instead of being angry and who spills his own blood and casts out sheets to the waiting courtiers. Thousands upon thousand of women I suppose have not been this lucky, but this is the image it evokes. The wry and playful husband setting gifts by the bedside, precious (probably aphrodisiac) fruits and liquids. Night after night he begs a kiss and each day he softly brushes her cheek as he kisses her still reluctant lips, then brushes her throat, then her shoulder, he chest, “her soft earthen mounds”, her leg, her ankle till eventually she’ll see his intent to love her and his patience and they’ll have reciprocal love. Maybe I’m reading too much into this? It’s just reminiscent of that possibility of honourable men through the ages and of the suggestions for reluctant wives in the Karma Sutra
xX Coralie UK