Scent of privet blooms,
creep through my bedroom's window,
pausing with sweetness.

Hafiz: To Build a Swing

You carry
All the ingredients
To turn your life into a nightmare-
Don’t mix them!

You have all the genius
To build a swing in your backyard
For God.

That sounds
Like a hell of a lot more fun.
Let’s start laughing, drawing blueprints,
Gathering our talented friends.

I will help you
With my divine lyre and drum.

Hafiz
Will sing a thousand words
You can take into your hands,
Like golden saws,
Sliver hammers,

Polished teakwood,
Strong silk rope.

You carry all the ingredients
To turn your existence into joy,
Mix them, mix
Them!

- Hafiz

Let Me Be Beautiful Like Sea Glass

Let my edges that cut be stroked by sand and salt
Let my slick surfaces coarsen till it’s crushed to bits
Let my colors soften as they scrape the bottom
Let the waves love me in their rough way
Let me be changed by that love
Let me not forget that I held another
Yet fully inhabit the particularity
Let me be smooth enough to be rubbed by smooth fingers
and slipped inside a pocket or a bowl
Let me prove that beauty is born when something breaks.
 

- Gwynn O’Gara From Lost Orchard: Prose and Poetry from the Kirkland College Community

Rain's patter on leaves,
a gray Sunday afternoon,
wren's call from the trees.

Sound of falling rain,
only yesterday so hot!
Today fifty-nine.

Eighty-six degrees,
dew point is seventy-three,
on first day of June.