



Crumpled fading newsprint
As yesterday’s armies march
Into tomorrow
A future we predicted
We accepted sleep standing upright
Sleep never understood;
A chapter of blank pages: my darling, your wrist hanging
Over the bed
Your blood a confusion
Your heartbeat the black window
Swallowing my hands
Fingers forming a circle
Bottom of a fleet casting shadows across the seabed
I toss my hat overboard
from my book Hierarchy of Loss (2007) Ekstasis Editions
What
Do sad people have in
Common?
It seems
They have all built a shrine
To the past
And often go there
And do a strange wail and
Worship.
What is the beginning of
Happiness?
It is to stop being
So religious
Like
That.
Translation by Daniel Ladinsky
The animal figure was originally a shadow puppet created last year by a Grade 8 student in a small Ontario town. I delivered a poetry and shadow puppetry workshop & we created a quite striking multi media production. I decided to experiment with a photo taken during the workshop. Simultaneously I discovered this Hafiz poem which follows the previous post by Rumi very elegantly.