Songwriting has been on hold for me since Arthur's death. There are hours when it's still hard to find much of any meaning in the new empty quiet, let alone a meaning clear enough to become song. In May I was working on a couple of songs about hope, which have become particularly cruel now. (I still like them. I'll still finish them. I just can't right now.)
I have been writing a lot, though—this is one of the ways I rediscover meaning. Maybe it counts.
I've come back to another poem I memorized years ago, by the 12th-century Iranian poet Mahsati. This translation is by Deirdre Lashgari, and I don't think it's nearly as well known as it ought to be:
I have been writing a lot, though—this is one of the ways I rediscover meaning. Maybe it counts.
I've come back to another poem I memorized years ago, by the 12th-century Iranian poet Mahsati. This translation is by Deirdre Lashgari, and I don't think it's nearly as well known as it ought to be:
Better to live as a rogue and a bum,
a lover all treat as a joke,
to hang out with a crowd of comfortable drunks,
than crouch in a hypocrite's cloak.
Unless you can dance through a common bar
with a vagabond's step, you're not going to make it.
This is the road of the reckless who gamble
their lives; risk yours, or you're not going to make it.
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