Bulbul – Nightingale and Roses

Meherabad, India / Myrtle Beach, SC / April 2007

I have painted the Red-Vented Bulbul because it is the Nightingale which Hafez immortalized in his ghazels.

I had to paint the Roses first, symbolic of the Beloved, before I was able to paint the lover, the Bulbul.

The Nightingale proclaims its love for the Rose in excerpts from my book: Language of the Birds-It Is All The Mirror of God, an original adaptation of Farid al-Din ‘Attar’s Conference of the Birds.

NIGHTINGALE – BULBUL speaks:

“Comes the dawn to find me in my magical garden fair,
Rather sleepy, for I serenade my Rose each night with care.

Within my love’s transcendent abode, thousands of flowers abide,
But like a stone, my soul’s devotion is adamant for my bride.

Like Hafez, I am not comely; his beloved heaped on him her scorn.
Mine regards me with disdain as well, and still, I rush against her thorns….”

“…I am Bulbul, a plain bird of feather,
Though beauty does shine from my heart’s only treasure.

I would the Rose’s countless thorns caress,
With thrashing heart and beating breast

Embed her thorns in this unworthy cavern.
I am aloof from Lord Simurgh’s Tavern.”

Please contact Laurie Blum for details.