Last Night: A Dream Poem by Hafez

Last Night: A Dream Poem by Hafez

I actually dreamed this poem. Waking up briefly, I scribbled it down in the middle of the night. In the morning I put some finishing touches on it (including the first couplet).

Last night this poem really happened in a dream of the wee hours,

and I wrote it down in the dark with a flashlight.

Last night dozens of hollow-eyed vagabonds lost in a great forest

woke up and sang with one voice.

Last night this poem intoned itself in the cadences of Dan Ladinsky

to whoever would listen at three o’clock in the morning.

Last night I dreamed the spirit of Hafiz roamed the earth like a wild beast

and touched every mother’s son and daughter with the madness of a poet.

Last night Meher Baba parted his vest in the shadows

and showed me a Persian textbook hidden in an inside pocket.

Last night, with only a couple of lessons

I learned all the prepositions and how to say “Thee” and “Thou,”

And last night I linked arms with Annemarie Schimmel and other illustrious scholars,

spouting translations with lusty spontaneity and only a few flubs.

Last night in the tavern a bear entered the heart of the man Hafiz

and from dark to dawn, no one knew if the man was still alive.

But O how the Bear danced.