Persian Love-Cakes

If life were a rose and love a lily, how wonderful, a life of Beauty
But, life keeps pouring on the grit, sometimes I get tired of it;
People singing from a different hymn sheet, overturning cars
Pouring out of bars, in a mood of savage cruelty.

Except for the flowers and the cats, big round unblinking eyes,
Everybody is working too hard. Suppose we take a break
A cup of tea in a blue cup? This is called Minakari, copper
enamel work.

Have you heard of Rumi or Hafez? The cities Isfahan and Shiraz?
Come on, roses of Saadi, how wonderful to be over the moon
with poet friends from this ancient land.

All I knew about Iran
was the Greeks and the 300 Spartans. Now, I'm tasting
Rosewater in Persian love-cakes:

Fairy tale stuff like a Hundred and One Nights.
Tell me another story, half of my world, half of my life.