poetry pRO     Katherine Gallagher
The White Boat, Contemporary Literature Press

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featured poet – Mimi Khalvati

Ghazal
   after Hafez

However large earth’s garden, mine’s enough.
One rose and the shade of a vine’s enough.
 
I don’t want more wealth, I don’t need more lies.
In the dregs of a glass, truth shines enough.
 
What can Paradise offer us beggars
And fools? What ecstasy, when wine’s enough?
 
Come and sit by the stream. Rivers run dry
But to carry their song, a chine’s enough.
 
For a poet drowned in a world of books,
Any book with a broken spine’s enough.
 
When you’re here, my love, what more could I want?
Just mentioning love in a line’s enough.
 
Heaven can wait. Since you opened the gate,
No heaven however divine’s enough.
 
I’ve no grounds for complaint. As Hafez says,
Isn’t a ghazal that he signs enough?
 

Mimi Khalvati

in collection The Meanest Flower, 2007, Carcanet,
ISBN 978-1-8575486-8-6

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