Ben, who works as the caretaker at Hackney Round Chapel, has been a true friend and help over the last year that I have been running a class there, since Steve asked me to step in when he moved to Israel. Last week I found Ben full of the joys of Sufi poetry, saying he was in the middle of the best book he'd read in a year. This week he has generously lent it to me, and I plan to blog a few verses. I have read a few excellent poems of Hafiz before, mainly in prefaces of collections of my hero Rumi's poetry, who lived 100 years before, in Persia. The translations in this book are modern versions by Daniel Ladinsky of 20th century translations; Ladinsky is doing for Hafiz what Coleman Barks has done for Rumi. I don't mind if Sufi poetry is in vogue because Madonna likes it or is unpopular as hard-line religious folks find the allusions to wine, love and the tavern too 'worldly'... I post this with love and gratitude to my teachers.

The Sun Never Says

Even

After

All this time

The sun never says to the earth

"You owe

Me"

Look

What happens

With a love like that,

It lights the

Whole

Sky.