After organizing and cleaning, I now have a small bedside nook again, complete with a cute little basket with what I am currently reading. That includes the two latest issues of Poets and Writers, A Year With Hafiz (translated by Daniel Ladinsky), The Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende ,and The Gangster We Are All Looking For by le thi diem thuy.
Here’s todays’ Hafiz gem:
Coax Your Mind
Who can look each day at a beautiful landscape
in the distance and not at some point want to
explore it?
Who can look out at the ocean every morning
and never venture beyond your common horizon
when a boat I am offering to you, and even willing
to do most of the paddling?
It is good if something gnaws at your innards
until you come to real terms with your potential.
God, like a flea, may bite somewhere to get
your focus to shift.
The Holy, like a good poem, may enter you and coax your mind… to wade out to more
interesting internal space.
———–
What’s at your bedside?
groundwork 