Review: The Gift

The Gift by Hafiz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have fallen in love with a man who has been dead for 625 years. Hafiz, where have you been all my life? Or perhaps I am more in love with Daniel Ladinsky who has, loosely, translated the poems of Hafez [a.k.a], known as the Great Sufi Master.

In The Gift, we are privileged to a collection of poems that speak on Hafiz’s love for God and the knowledge that that love has given him. I have never read such poetry that moved me so, and gave me an understanding I did not have before. I like poetry to tell a story, just how I like my books. With this collection a single line speaks volumes and a whole poem speaks a truth I can not convey in my own words.

I bookmarked at least 35 poems as my all time favorites. In most other poetry books I’ve read, I might have bookmarked one or two.

The piece that most stood out to me was one of the ones I read early on.

It goes:

I

Have

Learned

So much from God

That I can no longer

Call

Myself

A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim,

A Buddhist, a Jew.

The Truth has shared so much of Itself

With me

That I can no longer call myself

A man, a woman, an angel,

Or even pure

Soul.

Love has

Befriended Hafiz so completely

It has turned to ash

And freed

Me

Of every concept and image

My mind has ever known.

Hafiz is renowned in Islamic culture as he speaks a beauty about God that I have rarely heard a Christian utter. I think we have a lot to learn from this man, a devout Muslim, and hope that texts like these find their way into the shelves and hands of all our Abrahamic brethren. Actually they should find their way into the hands of everyone, no need to curtain such a treasure.

Amen.

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