Today I stand at your threshold
With a cup of Shiraz wine
That makes the world’s wise men drunk
And carries the spirit of Hafez’s home.
I gently open Faust
And the West–Eastern Divan,
Holding Shakh-e Nabat in my arms
As I pass Mephisto.
I come from opium’s eastern realm,
Dazed by deserts, dreams and words,
A spirit wandering drunk,
With Jam-e Jam as my passport.
Here I stand,
Breathing the flowers on your grave,
A breath that reaches Shiraz.
I whisper to you,
“I came from your brother’s land.”
I am Hafez’s close kin,
A homeless traveller
Who forgot his house in Herat
And still sings the song, verse by verse,
Between Shiraz and Weimar.
I know you hear my distant words,
For your resting place smells of the East.
Strangers whisper softly,
“A scent so foreign and so near,
As if from the desert, yet from the sea.”
Street after street in Shiraz,
Forgive me, on the paving stones of Weimar,
I followed your footsteps gently,
Along the Divan’s paths from East to West,
Until I stood here before you.
I stand quietly
At your door,
On the unsteady bridge between ages.
Goethe, can you understand?
The East has fallen, Hafez drinks no more,
And Faust rules the world.
Our world is ailing.
The Eastern Divan sleeps,
The Western Divan is silent,
And statues can no longer picture it.
I raise the cup.
Hafez’s voice calls within me:
“Only those who once saw the beloved
Can hear the sweet scent carried on the east wind.”
