Today is a celebration of the great outdoors and soaking up dazzling rays of sunlight. During the pandemic, my daughter and I have enjoyed taking hikes in our new neighborhood, as well as in nearby parks and nature preserves. Get out today and have fun exploring “this Wild Playground” as so beautifully described by the 12th-century Persian poet Hafiz in his poem “A Suspended Blue Ocean.”
The sky
Is a suspended blue ocean.
The stars are the fish
That swim.
The planets are the white whales
I sometimes hitch a ride on,
And the sun and all light
Have forever fused themselves
Into my heart and upon
My skin.
There is only one rule
On this Wild Playground,
For every sign Hafiz has ever seen
Reads the same.
They all say,
“Have fun, my dear; my dear, have fun,
In the Beloved’s Divine
Game,
O, in the Beloved’s
Wonderful Game.”
