Do Not Sink Into Sadness

 

Joseph the lost will return, Jacob should not

 Sink into sadness, those who sit in the Grief

 House will eventually sit in the Garden.

 The grieving chest will find honey; do not let

 The heart rot. The manic hysterical head

 Will find peace, do not sink into sadness.

 If the way the Milky Way revolves ignores

 Your desires for one or two days, do not

 Sink into sadness. All turning goes as it will.

 I say to the bird: “As long as spring

 Baptizes the grass, the immense scarlet blossoms

 Will continue to sway in your head.”

 Even if the flood of materialism

 Drowns everything, do not sink into

 Sadness, because Noah is your captain.

 Do not sink into sadness, even though the mysteries

 Of the other world slip past you entirely. 

 There are plays within plays that you cannot see.

 Although the way station you want to reach

 Is dangerous and the goal distant, do not

 Sink into sadness; all roads have an end.

Stanzas from a poem by Hafez

translated by Robert Bly and Leonard Lewisohn

BK photo