![\"Cedar\"](\"http:\/\/www.aimcedarworks.com\/images\/6x8%20Solid%20159-272.jpg\")
<\/a>An example of cedar wood<\/p><\/div>\n
They enter the workshop and sense the familiar smell that sticks to their\u00a0nose like soot: the wood
\nAligned in lumber stacks, fresh off the cedar tree. They critique and strut the wood.<\/p>\n
The mahogany knots swirl through the honey colored flesh, begging
\nTo remain in their host. Their\u00a0eyes are lost in the marks that glut the wood.<\/p>\n
Their\u00a0vision is\u00a0swirling with their depth. They are intoxicated in their perfect imperfections,
\nThe pulpy\u00a0wine color that draws them\u00a0in, envelopes them; they\u00a0need nothing but the wood.<\/p>\n
The rough edging kick starts their\u00a0imagination: \u201cwhat shall you be, my created
\nYet uncreated work?\u201d Whatever the cedar\u00a0chooses, they\u00a0shan\u2019t rebut the wood.<\/p>\n
They listen for guidance, but get none; they yearn for a lead, but silence is their gift;
\nThey\u00a0plead for insight, attention, anything at all. Yet who stays shut? The wood.<\/p>\n
They’ve offered their\u00a0time, their\u00a0life, but the lumber in front of them\u00a0doesn\u2019t reconcile.
\nFinally a spark: \u201cYou were life, so you shall protect life. I\u2019ll hut the wood.\u201d<\/p>\n
The boards enlightened them; the cedar boards\u00a0would stand together, not alone,
\nAs a house amidst the playful daffodils and sleek roses, out of which would\u00a0jut the wood.<\/p>\n
It will provide salvation in Paradise; a home for the feeble, the weak, the penniless.
\nIn the blooming garden, the vibrant reds and yellows know what\u2019s what: the wood.<\/p>\n
The images flood their\u00a0mind and\u00a0their\u00a0eyes. Cedar’s love for the helpless drives them\u00a0to tears.
\nThe Woodworker’s\u00a0needs are\u00a0obliterated. Now all that\u2019s left is to cut the wood.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Week 9: Sufi Piety II – The Ghazal (love lyric) and Mathnawi (narrative epic)<\/strong><\/p>\n Nearly every language and culture holds onto specific linguistic and literary icons that define it. Urdu and the ghazal are no different. The ghazal and its poetic form have been transmitted for centuries and still hold a prominent place in Pakistan and India to the point of evoking specific poems in Parliament to supplement an argument about of state reorganization (Naim 185-186). Thus, ghazals are held not only in high esteem but also widely used and practiced, leading to widespread familiarity with their form and message.<\/p>\n This message, whether written in a ghazal from the 14th<\/sup> century or since the turn of the 21st<\/sup>, often centers on a love story between an ambiguous suffering lover and a distant beloved representing God (Naim 190, Pietievich 3, de Bruijn 51-53). The story is set in a poetic framework that is comprised of \u201coften semantically disconnected\u201d couplets that follow a set rhyme scheme with repeated syllables near the end of the second line called the qafiyah<\/em> with a repeated phrase, or radif<\/em>, and\u00a0a matla’<\/em>, or repeated end-rhyme in the first couplet\u00a0and often include a pen name of the author (Naim 186). Furthermore, ghazals usually incorporate different recurring atypical themes that range from drinking to questioning authority along with more modest tropes like gardens and birds. These poems culminate in the lover\u2019s destruction in the beloved\u2019s love and engage an alternation between existence and non-existence (Section 9).<\/p>\n In my piece \u201cCedar\u201d, I employ the ghazal to represent an interpretation of the relationship between God and a lover onto that of an uncrafted stock of lumber and The Woodworker, my employed pen name for this poem. The qafiyah <\/em>in my poem is seen with the sound \u201c-ut\u201d followed by \u201cthe wood\u201d, which is the radif<\/em>. The lover of the poem, The Woodworker, is referred to as \u201cthey\u201d or \u201cthem\u201d throughout the poem to maintain ambiguity and often engages in common ghazal tropes to align with true ghazal form. First, The Woodworker becomes intoxicated in the deliberately chosen wine-colored knots of the wood; he loses his self in the wood and is totally devoted to its existence, just as subjects in ghazals are often drunk in their love for God. Immediately after losing themself, The Woodworker goes through a period of frustration with the wood as it offers no insight into what its destiny is; rather, the wood stays shut up until the author finally has a spark of imagination. This mimics the suffering that ghazal subjects are usually put through by the beloved. Finally, The Woodworker hatches the idea to turn the wood into a shelter for the needy and falls in love with the idea; they will put the home in a garden of flowers and the love that will perpetuate from the wood ultimately destroys the author. Again, this destruction in love parallels the common ghazal theme of love for God and the beloved, and concludes in the lover\u2019s destruction in the very love they have.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cedar They enter the workshop and sense the familiar smell that sticks to their\u00a0nose like soot: the wood Aligned in lumber stacks, fresh off the cedar tree. They critique and strut the wood. The mahogany knots swirl through the honey colored flesh, begging To remain in their host. Their\u00a0eyes are lost in the marks that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7980,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-60","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/enlightenedperception\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/60","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/enlightenedperception\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/enlightenedperception\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/enlightenedperception\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7980"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/enlightenedperception\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/enlightenedperception\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/60\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/enlightenedperception\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/60\/revisions\/78"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/enlightenedperception\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}