Response 4: Ghazal
I said: let me venerate you in couplets of love
She said: deeper is affection in the goblets of love.
I said: beautiful the stillness that sees lovers rejoice
She said: merrier the tavern in its riots of love.
I said: Rise, feast before the morning breeze brings the adhaan
She said: your prayer mat will be soaked with the spirits of love.
I said: lovely the morning that sees the turtledoves’ nest
She said: rich the nights that hear the nightingale’s sonnets of love.
I said: suffused is the air with perfume of the rose
She said: limp is its form for the bee’s visits of love.
I said: Accept these silks to polish your jeweled bracelets
She said: rags will do, lest they be thought trinkets of love.
I said: my love for you will endure until death robs me
She said: Be not father of a gift with limits of love.
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I wrote this poem in the style of a ghazal to celebrate a common theme of ghazals – seeking after divine love. The rough format of the ghazal was inspired by Ghazal 35 in the translation of Hafez used in class which I had memorized. I found the “I said….she said….” dynamic to be not only a powerful visualization of the Lover-Beloved interaction that is a strong feature of this imagining of divine love, but also a helpful device in the construction of the poem. Writing couplets that were dissociated and independent in themselves was harder than I imagined, and linking them in this way (a dialogue between the lover and beloved) proved much easier.
I attempted to follow the traditional pattern of a ghazal. The meter is regular – each line has 14 syllables. There is the use of a radif, a refrain – in this case the words “of love”. This is perhaps not the most imaginative or daring of example of a radif, but I wanted something that was malleable and yet through repetition, focused one’s thoughts on the central theme of the ghazal. The qaafiya, italicized above, is a two-syllable word ending in “its”.
The ghazal also concludes, as is traditional, with a takhallus, the pen name of the author. In this case, I used one of the meanings of my name (“father of a gift”)
In constructing the ghazal, I tried to use the traditional motifs, along with other ones, constructed along a pattern of oppositions between what the Lover says and the Beloved responds.
The first couplet draws a contrast between words and actions. The Beloved prefers to drink with the Lover instead of listening to long panegyrics. The goblet here is an image of the heart while the couplets are a reference to ghazals, and mystical poetry in general. Mystical poetry, like music and other artistic forms used by Sufis, can never be an end in itself. People often fall into the trap of appreciating the beauty of a ghazal without going further than its outward form. Such affection must arise from the heart where the true struggle is waged.
The second couplet uses the image of stillness and contrasts it with shocking displays of love in a tavern. The image of peacefulness represents a person who is placid and complacent in the practice of religion and ritual. By contrast, the Sufi is ablaze with the passion of a drunk person, and mad with love for the Beloved, and often acts in a manner outside human propriety because he/she is not bound by normal human conventions but rather illogical displays of love in which, like a drunk person, he/she is not in control of the self.
In the next couplet, rising and feasting is a reference to nocturnal practices of prayer and the idea of Sufis being in a continuous state of prayer even after the daily round of prayers have concluded. I then use the image of the prayer mat being stained with wine (a metaphor for wine) to reference the idea of the heart of the Sufi, the place where true worship/prostration before God takes place, being filled with love.
In the fourth couplet, the lover rejoins with the image of love and contentment – a morning with the picture of turtledoves, so often used to express affection. Yet the Beloved reminds the lover that it is not contentment with a personal, ritual-devotional status quo but the state of separation (i.e. “night”) and longing for the Beloved, represented by the song of the nightingale, that is paramount in life.
In the fifth couplet, the image is of a rose and its smell. Some people are overcome by the very whiff of the rose, here an image that can denote many things – primarily, God the Beloved, but even his Messenger and his teachings. The very idea of being in union with God can often send people into a false ecstasy. People may often only look at the externals – the music, or the dance, or another ritual – the mere smell of the rose, and be too easily overcome or fall into ecstasy. Yet as many Sufis warn, a superficial understanding of music, motivated by love of the music itself, and too much “longing for the created” can lead one astray. A true understanding – an ethical understanding – of the ritual music is only infused with love for the Beloved, and in this way alone can it serve as a guide. As the Beloved retorts, the bee hovers around a limp – or dead rose. I thought of this image as emblematic of a sufi. Like the bee, he wishes to partake of a nectar hidden in the rose. Yet because the rose is limp – or dead – he cannot. This image seemed to capture well for me that idea of separation – in fact, its very necessity. Through embracing and accepting this state of separation, one can feel more perfectly a longing for God. It is this pure longing for God that will help the Sufi attain a true union through annilation (fana). Another interpretation that I thought of was the rose as being the pure doctrine revealed by God but killed through a lack of feeling and the mere observance of legal laws and rituals. The bee still represents the sufi which hovers around this dead rose, hoping to taste the nectar that lies at its center.
In the next couplet, I tried to express the idea of the necessity of an opposite and even work in the idea of, for example, the devil as the lover of God. There has to be imperfection and evil for the good to be recognized. God cannot be known as the lover without a sort of foil, a tragic lover, who is the devil. Thus what seem to be “rags” ultimately serve to highlight the preciousness of the jewel, more than silks. The interpretation is also one on the necessity of Sufi humility. The more the “silk” competes with the “jewel” the less precious the jewel. In other words, the more the nafs (ego) completes with the Divine Reality, the less can one feel the union with the Divine. On the other hand, the more one empties oneself, and becomes humble like “rags”, the more easily seen is the union of that soul with the Divine, just as the rags become precious by wrapping the jewel.
The last couplet attempts to play around with what is the idea of death, and the idea of a sufi undergoing a kind of spiritual death through annilation.