The ghazal is an ancient form of poetry that while originally found in the mystical poets of Persia, has crossed cultural and geographic boundaries to become a form of poem that is utilize by many.

A minimum of five couplets that maintain the same meter and abide by a strict form of endings and refrains…the purpose of the ghazal is to speak of loss of love, or separation, while celebrating the love that still remains.

They are odd things to read.

Often, the poet’s name is mentioned within the ghazal in the last line. Hafiz is a fine example of that, his poems often end with “Hafiz knows.”

The ghazal is the expression of the complexity of love and life. That within pain there is beauty, within loss there is always life. That love transcends the moments of separation.

I feel so god damn ill.

But…given enough caffeine, I am barely functional.

What would it be like to live ones life like a ghazal?

To speak in rhythmic cadence of the realities of the heart and at the end, to place your own name among the words so that you own them, belong with them and are recognized within them.

When I wrote about Nadja Anjuman that was my first exposure to the ghazal (or so I thought), only later, in exploring the history of the form have I discovered that I have been drawn to it increasingly over the years. Hafiz, Rumi, Anjuman – all the Persians and Middle Eastern poems that draw me because they are not simple laments about life, but contain the bittersweet reality of what it means to live. In all things we lose, in all things we gain. In all things there is a cycle of life – from birth to death, and in between – the life expands and intertwines with what is around it and becomes – greater than its own limited existence.

Had I a brain that was not drowning in my sinuses, I would be starting some of the work I have planned which revolves heavily around learning the form of the ghazal.

As it is…I am steeped in fever and caffeine and I watch the play of my thoughts like they were a movie on someone else’s screen.

And all I keep thinking is…how is it I have never noticed before that the Mad Kitten is so very soft?

New Performance Video!  Requiem for a God what is that little flower? copyright 2000-2009 Cassandra Tribe. All rights reserved. For permission to use any of this material please contact info@loveandwords.com

There are no comments to this entry.