Happy Birthday, Attar!

Tehran Times - Tehran, Iran

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Today is Attar Day

Iranians annually celebrate April 14 as Attar Day to commemorate poet and Sufi Farid ad-Din Attar (ca 1145 - ca 1221).

Looking for Your Own Face

Your face is neither infinite nor ephemeral.

You can never see your own face,

only a reflection, not the face itself.

So you sigh in front of mirrors

and cloud the surface.

It's better to keep your breath cold.

Hold it, like a diver does in the ocean.

One slight movement, the mirror-image goes.

Don't be dead or asleep or awake.

Don't be anything.

What you most want,

what you travel around wishing to find,

lose yourself as lovers lose themselves,

and you'll be that.

*The Hand of Poetry: Five Mystic Poets of Persia*

p.57

Lectures by Inayat Khan

Translations by Coleman Barks

Omega Publications Inc

ISBN 0-930872-47-9