Iran: Waxing lyrical about love and wine

The cover of a Farsi version of the works of Hafez (L) and Hafez's elegant tomb in Shiraz. Photos / Jill Worrall

The gate was padlocked, the tiny leafy courtyard deserted, no fountain played in the pool... it was true... the teahouse behind the tomb of Hafez was shut.

The southern Iranian city of Shiraz is the birth and burial place of the country's most beloved poet: Khaje Shams-ed- din Mohammed better known as Hafez, which means One Who Can Recite the Koran from Memory.

While it is perhaps not surprising that almost every house in Iran will hold a copy of the Koran, it is more surprising to Kiwis at least (where poetry tends to be something of a minority sport) that a volume of the works of Hafez is also essential.

Iranians have many great poets, including Omar Khayyam (the best known outside the country), Saadi, Attar, Ferdowsi and Rumi (who is also claimed by other nations). But Hafez has a special place in their hearts - maybe because his poetry speaks to people on many levels.

Hafez is a mystical poet - he writes of God and divine love but also of wine (which is especially ironic in Shiraz where alcohol, as in the rest of Iran, is banned), nightingales and earthly love.

Readers are free to interpret his words how they wish. There's also a widespread belief that if you dip at random into Hafez his words will foretell your future.

For Iranians visiting Shiraz, Hafez's tomb is an essential stop. Outside the walled garden that encloses his tomb men stand holding small boxes in one hand and a canary or budgie in the other. Pay a few cents and the bird will pull a card from the box that bears a few lines of Hafez's poetry and an accompanying interpretation.

Inside the gate a flower-bordered water channel leads to a colonnaded terrace. Beyond this lies the simple, graceful domed pavilion under which is the marble tomb of the poet.

I never tire of watching people approach the tomb, touch it with their fingers then recite some lines from the Koran and from the poet himself.

Every year, my Iranian friend and fellow guide Reza read to our group - me in English and he in mellifluous Persian.

This often attracts locals who clap appreciatively - sometimes in contrast to some of the Kiwis who seem less comfortable with impassioned words about the quality of love.

But the setting could not be more perfect to recite lines such as:

"All the long night we talked of your long hair

The hollow listening hours rolled darkly by

The solemn world beneath the steady stars

The morning moved, sleep- walking up the sky"

When the much-mourned teahouse was open it would be filled with Iranians, many bearing copies of Hafez.

While they sipped tea and ate dishes of the local ice-cream - rosewater-flavoured faludeh - they would read Hafez aloud. The splash of the fountain the clink of tea glasses, the gurgle of the hubble-bubble pipes, formed the backdrop to their murmurings.

I am told the teahouse has been closed because the landlord has put the rent up too high. May his tea be bitter and his bread stale.

If I could command the shrine canaries to choose some Hafez for him maybe this would do, with just a minor substitution of a glass of tea for Shiraz wine...

"The Ocean of Love is a sea where there is no shore

"And without the soul's surrender, there is no hope, no sand

"When you come here on pilgrimage, don't bore us with your stories of judges and human laws

"Bring wine!"