Out Of The Mouths Of A Thousand Birds: The Hafiz Series

"Out of the Mouths of a Thousand Birds" is an invitation to stop the inner noise — the mind's battering ram running through the city shouting about ten thousand things that don't matter — and instead turn toward the sacred music that's already everywhere: milk drums, wagon wheels, the prayer call, even folded hands and a quiet heart. Hafiz confesses that he too spent years in that same frantic distance from God, which is precisely what seasoned him into the scarred, sweet pilgrim who now weeps and sings for you.

The poem closes as it opens — with "listen" — but this time the call is inward, and the thousand birds have become one, because that's where the real prayer always rises from."

'Out of the Mouths of a Thousand Birds', a selection from 'The Subject Tonight Is Love: 60 Wild and Sweet Poems Inspired by Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky, copyright 1996, 2003, with permission.

Transcript

Listen more carefully to what is around you right now. In my world, There are bells from the clanks of the morning milk drums, And a wagon wheel outside my window just hit a bump, Which turned into an ecstatic chorus of the beloved's name. There is the prairie call, Rising up like the sun out of the mouths of a thousand birds. There is an astonishing vastness of movement and life emanating sound and light from my folded hands and my even quieter, Simple being and heart. My dear, Is it true that your mind is sometimes like a battering ram, Running all through the city, Shouting so madly inside and out about the 10, 000 things that do not matter? Hafiz, Too, For many years beat his head in youth and thought himself at a great distance, Far from an armistice with God. But that is why this scarred old pilgrim has now become. . . Such a sweet. . . Rare Vintage. Who weeps and sings for you. That is why Hafiz will forever, In his verse, Play his cymbal and call to you. Oh, Listen. Listen more carefully to what is inside of you right now. In my world, All that remains is the wondrous call to dance and prayer. Rising up like a thousand suns out of the mouth of a single bird.