droplets

new white shirts
and old red wine.

.

Cupbearer, it is morning, fill my cup with wine.
Make haste, the heavenly sphere knows no delay.
Before this transient world is ruined and destroyed,
ruin me with a beaker of rose-tinted wine.
The sun of the wine dawns in the east of the goblet.
Pursue life's pleasure, abandon dreams,
and the day when the wheel makes pitchers of my clay,
take care to fill my skull with wine!
We are not men for piety, penance and preaching
but rather give us a sermon in praise of a cup of clear wine.
Wine-worship is a noble task, O Hafiz;
rise and advance firmly to your noble task.

-- Hafiz
(1320 - 1389)

English version by Bernard Lewis

cerasinus
cerasina
cerasinum:

cherry-colored

.

Cheap

     Yesterday drinking too much cheap white wine,
     today a copper red Irish setter comes swimming —
     long nose gentlemanly, sleek as a yacht's prow,
     steady as a Cambridge lady's bicycle on a straight path
     over four feet pedaling gently, in the clear green underneath —
     eyes filling with tears again: too many blue skies, brief showers, gray sunshine.

-- Patricia Goedicke