Pondering out loud on paper: The Bar, The Tavern, Hafiz the Poet

J’ai peur que mes larmes déchirent de mon chagrin le voile,
que ce secret scellé devienne la fable du monde.
On dit que la pierre devient rubis à l’étape de la Patience.
Certes, elle le devient, mais avec le sang du foie !
J’irai à la Taverne, pleurant, réclamant justice,
car Là-bas, ma délivrance de l’empire du chagrin peut arriver.
J’ai lancé de tous côtés les flèches de ma prière,
l’une d’elles pourrait être efficace.

Translated from the persian byC.-H. de Fouchécour

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I was shocked to see board games at the last bar I went to, it gave me a window into how other people view bars differently than how I do. Reading Big Sexy’s post, aka the Sandy Tongue, today on the types of douche bags to avoid in the Bar really brought it home for me. I thought who better to share my thoughts or rather set the ambiance for how MrMary approaches the bar or tavern than Hafiz a 14th century poet and all around bad ass.

J’ai peur que mes larmes déchirent de mon chagrin le voile,
que ce secret scellé devienne la fable du monde.
I am afraid that my tears might tear away the veil of my grief…
that this hidden secret might become just another fable of many.

It seems everyone has something they carry, something dear that no one if any has access too. In many cases or in all cases perhaps it is a part of themselves hidden away and not touched so much by the miasma of the world. Bukowski has said quite simply but eloquently:

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I’m not going
to let anybody see
you.

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Sometimes we have to let that ‘bluebird” out or give it a space at least to say what it must. But we cannot let the words and the tales it tells fall upon profane ears.

On dit que la pierre devient rubis à l’étape de la Patience.
Certes, elle le devient, mais avec le sang du foie !
It is said that a stone can become a ruby when it attains Patience.
Certainly it can attain ! – but only after much blood shed !

We are all incomplete, we are all a work in progress and as such we move to completion no matter what we do,  through relationships, new endeavors,… sometimes willingly or unwillingly we find ourselves  outside the comfort of what is known, going through hardship. But it is so difficult to live openly and freely, to live with patience that all of this has meaning, even if at the moment we cannot understand it.

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J’irai à la Taverne, pleurant, réclamant justice,
car Là-bas, ma délivrance de l’empire du chagrin peut arriver.
J’ai lancé de tous côtés les flèches de ma prière,
l’une d’elles pourrait être efficace.
I will go to the Tavern, lamenting – demanding justice,
because Over there, I can be freed from this empire of grief .
I have shot the arrows of my prayer every direction,
that one of them might be successful.

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Some great translations by Robert Bly, I dont know Persian at least not yet but it captures some of the spirit of Hafiz. Great to read on the train.

And so we go to the tavern to drink but not to forget and not to be seen, but to let something else talk that has been too quiet for so long. We give a small voice to all the deep secret inner longings we have, in the hopes, that one mind find its way into becoming.