Moon at Half Past Noon

(As in the Sufi tradition, the tavern, the wine, and the hostess are all metaphors. Tavern is our world where we experience life,and the hostess is the ephemeral cycle of joys and grief. )

To the Tavern, ambles and saunters, the avid wine lover,
‘Which path should I take’? lost like an innocent child, he wonders,
Everyone offers a different path, let me point to the yonder
‘Tread just any one road, you will find the tavern when you surrender’

In coming and going, ah, this entire life is gone
‘Walk, it is yet far’, says everyone who’s away from home
In cowardice, I stop, without courage, I return no more
Bewildered, it confounds, the tavern stands distant as a dome

Ceaselessly, chant and sing, ‘oh my sherry, vino, wine’
Feel thus real, hands hold a cup, a beautiful chalice divine
Let the mind conjure, mellifluous joys, that the hostess may devise
Pilgrim, go on, the tavern will no longer fell afar, a shrine

When the thirsty spirit craves, the craving is your wine
When the quiver of lips makes the cup appear divine
When vision of the hostess, a playmate, will be as real, as it’s fine
Even without a wine, or a cup, or a hostess, the tavern you shall find