Good Advice

Teacher sent me down the poetry road to find Hafiz

But he’s dead, I protested

What can I learn from him?

Perhaps nothing, Teacher said

But I still had to go

It wasn’t long before I found Hafiz on the road

He couldn’t have known who I was

But he’s a wily old codger

(I knew that from reading his poems)

And he greeted me as a long lost friend

Not wanting to take much of a dead man’s time

I got right to the point, asking:

What is it I can learn from you?

The question drew from him a deep belly laugh

Until speaking through unmanly giggles he finally said:

I wrote many words when I lived

And most of them were true

But now I spend my time dancing with clouds and angels

And none of it matters

If it matters to you still,

Write your truth as you would have it be

He flew from me then

But I could still hear him laughing as I turned for home

I thought long on what he may have meant

By telling me to write the truth as I would have it be

I am thinking on it still