Come ... Sit in My Heart
A Sufi Speaks His Silence
Deeply felt, tender, and moving, these poems are the work of a sensitive, perceptive poet.
“Take off your shoes / Where we are going / you will not be touching the ground,” promises one of the poems in Come … Sit in My Heart: A Sufi Speaks His Silence. Written by Iranian American poet Hosain Mosavat, this lovely collection of free verse explores the intimacy of faith and the expression of the divine through relationships. Drawing on his Iranian heritage and the influences of Persian poets Hafiz and Saadi, Mosavat weaves images that infuse daily life with spiritual joy.
Sufism is a search for the truth of divine love through the direct experience of God, and Come … Sit in My Heart connects deeply with that essential human yearning. The theme of love, expressed through different types of relationships, is foremost in the collection.
Love, as Mosavat describes it, takes many forms: it is an embrace, an engulfing ocean, an opening rose, a fragrance on the wind. A repeating black-and-white image of a blooming rose faces each piece, offering a visual element that complements the poetry.
From pure, innocent experiences of God to sexy, corporal ones, the poems here find perpetual delight in the many ways that people are touched by, and touch, the spiritual realm. Although they deal with serious spiritual concepts, the poems avoid intellectual arguments or theological theories in favor of simple, accessible expressions. The collection’s sixty-three poems are rich with sensory details drawn from the natural world.
Images are delicate and clearly rendered: “When a rose waves at you / you know wind is present.” They blur the boundaries between the physical and spiritual realms. The poems’ ambiguous subjects are beautifully juxtaposed to their clear, evocative descriptions. “I Feel the Strokes of Your Breath through Me” and “You Bring Me to Your Lips Like a Flute” are two of the strongest pieces in the collection—lyrical, with imagery that is both spiritual and corporeal.
Discussions of faith are frank. “I am a beggar who begs to give you love / I am a Sufi,” one poem declares. Spirituality pervades the collection; each poem is a testament to joy in communion. Insights into Sufism add dimension to what appear, at first glance, to be romantic poems.
Each piece invites new questions about the nature of the universe: How do we interact with holiness? How do we make space for love and lose ourselves in divine union? Striking a balance between human affairs and religious ones, these poems make the case that the two are, in fact, inseparable, mutually beneficial domains.
Each poem is titled by its first line, which makes locating them within the collection difficult. Page numbers and a table of contents are helpful. The typeface is elegant but somewhat difficult to read.
Come … Sit in My Heart is Mosavat’s first collection of poetry. It is deeply felt, tender, and moving: an incredible first effort from a sensitive, perceptive poet.
Reviewed by
Claire Foster
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
