in a handful of God

 

Poetry reveals that there is no empty space.

When your truth forsakes its shyness,

When your fears surrender to your strengths,

You will begin to experience

That all existence

Is a teeming sea of infinite life.

In a handful of ocean water

You could not count all the finely tuned

Musicians

Who are acting stoned

For very intelligent and sane reasons

And of course are becoming extremely sweet

And wild!

In a handful of the sky and earth,

In a handful of God,

We cannot count

All the ecstatic lovers who are dancing there

Behind the mysterious veil.

True art reveals there is no void

Or darkness.

There is no loneliness to the clear-eyed mystic

In this luminous, brimming

Playful world.

~ Hafiz

from The Subject Tonight is Love:

 60 Wild and Sweet Poems of Hafiz 

translated by Daniel Ladinsky

photo: Artists from Tjanpi Desert Weavers let their sisters fly,

 Papulankutja, Western Australia, 2015. 

Photograph: Annieka Skinner