Drunk on Tenderness

From Leila d’Abate

Me: Hafiz, how do you deal

with heartbreak?

Hafiz: I don’t.

Me: What do you mean?

Hafiz: Your heart is a bottle

filled with the effervescence

of God.

Heartbreak

yanks the cork.

Me: But what if this pain never stops?

Hafiz: If it doesn’t stop, my dear,

it means God has made you

a bartender

and you will find a way to pour

that gives purpose,

that will be a source

of comfort and true company

to the loneliness

in others’ hearts.

And you and I both know

we are the type

that won’t stop

until the whole world is drunk

on inspired tenderness.

— Chelan Harkin

*

In pursuing what we mean by beauty we are obstructed by the word beauty itself. It strikes the ear as so effete, so ineffectual, lovely and etheric, so far removed from the soul’s desperate concerns.