stretch out

Leave the familiar for a while.

Let your senses and bodies stretch out

Like a welcomed season

Onto the meadows and shores and hills.

Open up to the Roof.

Make a new water-mark on your excitement

And love.

Like a blooming night flower,

Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness

And giving

Upon our intimate assembly.

Change rooms in your mind for a day.

All the hemispheres in existence

Lie beside an equator

In your heart.

Greet Yourself

In your thousand other forms

As you mount the hidden tide and travel

Back home.

All the hemispheres in heaven

Are sitting around a fire

Chatting

While stitching themselves together

Into the Great Circle inside of

You. 

~ Hafiz

greet yourself in your thousand other forms

Leave the familiar for a while.

Let your senses and bodies stretch out

Like a welcomed season

Onto the meadows and shores and hills.

Open up to the Roof.

Make a new water-mark on your excitement

And love.

Like a blooming night flower,

Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness

And giving

Upon our intimate assembly.

Change rooms in your mind for a day.

All the hemispheres in existence

Lie beside an equator

In your heart.

Greet Yourself

In your thousand other forms

As you mount the hidden tide and travel

Back home.

All the hemispheres in heaven

Are sitting around a fire

Chatting

While stitching themselves together

Into the Great Circle inside of

You.

.

~ Hafiz

love lifts me

What we speak
becomes the house
we live in.
Who will want
to sleep in your bed
if the roof leaks
right above it?

Fear is the
cheapest room
in the house,
I would like
to see you living
in better conditions.

There is only one reason
we have followed God
into this world:
to encourage laughter,
freedom,
dance and love ....

God and I are rushing
from every corner of
existence,
needing to say
we are yours.

The sun never says
to the earth,
even after all this time
“you owe me”.

I once asked a bird
how is it that you
fly in this gravity
of darkness?
she responded,
love lifts me.

I should not make
any promises right now
but I know if you pray
somewhere in this world
something good
will happen.

~ Hafiz
Daniel Ladinsky and
Robert Bly versions
 

a leaf says

 

 

 

 




A leaf says,

“Sweethearts—don’t pick me,
For I am busy doing
God’s work.

I am lowering my veins and roots
Like ropes
With buckets tied to them
Into the earth’s deep
Lake.

I am drawing water
That I offer like a rose to
The sky.

I am a singing cleaning woman
Dusting all the shelves in
The air
With my elegant green
Rags.

I have a heart.
I can know happiness like
You.



~ Hafiz

from The Subject Tonight is Love:

Sixty Wild and Sweet Poem of Hafiz

photo of Daisugi pruning technique

 

 

 

 

angels grumble

 

Every time a man upon the path

Does not keep his

Word.

Some angels grumble

And have to remove a few of

The bets

They had placed upon

His heart

To win.

~ Hafiz

from The Subject Tonight is Love

translations by Daniel Ladinsky

the kind of friend you are

.

This is the kind of Friend

You are -

Without making me realize

My soul's anguished history,

You slip into my house at night,

And while I am sleeping,

You silently carry off

All my suffering and sordid past 

In Your beautiful 

Hands.

.

~ Hafiz

from The Subject Tonight is Love

translation by Daniel Ladinsky

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

the simple joy

 

The time of judging

Who is drunk or sober,

Who is right and who is wrong

Who is closer to god, and who is farther away

All that is over

This caravan is led instead by a great delight,

The simple joy that sits with us now

That is the grace

~ Hafiz

with that moon language

Admit something:

Everyone you see, you say to them, 

“Love me.”

Of course you do not do this out loud, 

Otherwise,

Someone would call the cops.

Still though, think about this, 

This great pull in us 

To connect.

Why not become the one 

Who lives with a full moon in each eye

 That is always saying,

With that sweet moon 

Language,

What every other eye in this world

 Is dying to

Hear?

~ Hafiz

from The Gift

Poems by Hafiz, 

the Great Sufi Master

translations by Daniel Ladinsky

act great

What is the key

To untie the knot of your mind’s suffering?

What

Is the esoteric secret

To slay the crazed one whom each of us

Did wed

And who can ruin

Our heart’s and eye’s exquisite tender

Landscape?

Hafiz has found

Two emerald words that

Restored

Me

That I now cling to as I would sacred

Tresses of my Beloved’s 

Hair:

Act great.

My dear, always act great.

What is the key

To untie the knot of the mind’s suffering?

Benevolent thought, sound

And movement.

~ Hafiz

I do not want to step so quickly

.

.

I

Do not

Want to step so quickly

Over a beautiful line on God's palm

As I move through the earth's

Marketplace

Today.

I do not want to touch any object in this world

Without my eyes testifying to the truth

That everything is

My Beloved.

Something has happened

To my understanding of existence

That now makes my heart always full of wonder

And kindness.

I do not

Want to step so quickly

Over this sacred place on God's body

That is right beneath your

Own foot

As I

Dance with

Precious life

Today.

.

~ Hafiz

from The Gift

translation by Daniel Ladinsky

photo by albert watson

.

holding hands

 

 

 

 

Out of a great need
we are all holding hands
and climbing.

Not loving is a letting go.

Listen,the terrain around here
is
far too
dangerous
for
that.

 

 

 

~ Hafiz

 

 

 

 

traveling through

Death is a favour to us,
But our scales have lost their balance.
The impermanence of the body
Should give us great clarity, deepening the wonder in our
Senses and eyes
Of this mysterious existence we share
And surely are just traveling through.

If I were in the tavern tonight,
Hafiz would call for drinks
And as the Master poured, I would be reminded
That all I know of life and myself is that
We are just a mid-air flight of golden wine
Between His Pitcher and His cup.


If I were in the tavern tonight,
I would buy freely for everyone in this world
Because our marriage with the Cruel Beauty
Of time and space cannot endure very long.


Death is a favour to us,
But our minds have lost their balance.
The miraculous existence and impermanence of
Form
Always makes the illumined ones
Laugh and sing.





~ Hafiz

from  The subject tonight is Love –  poems of Hafiz
Versions by Daniel Ladinsky

more kind?

Once a man came to me and spoke for hours about
“His great visions of God” he felt he was having.

He asked me for confirmation, saying,
Are these wondrous dreams true?”

I replied, “How many goats do you have?”
He looked surprised and said,
“I am speaking of sublime visions
And you ask
About goats!”

And I spoke again saying,
“Yes, brother – how many do you have?”

“Well, Hafiz, I have sixty-two.”

“And how many wives?”

Again he looked surprised, then said,
“Four.”

“How many rose bushes in your garden,
How many children,
Are your parents still alive,
Do you feed the birds in winter?”

And to all he answered.

Then I said,
“You asked me if I thought your visions were true,
I would say that they were if they make you become
More human,

More kind to every creature and plant
That you know.

~ Hafiz

from The Gift: Poems by the Great Sufi Master

 

the jar I am becoming

The sky-wheel turns us into dawn

and fills creation again with color.

Let it be our weakness, this thirst-love

for the world, the sun coming up

like red-gold being poured!

The potter's wheel moves,

and shapes change quickly.

Let the jar I am becoming

turn into a wine cup.

Fill me with your love

for being awake.

I'm no hypocrite renunciate.

Call me this delicious substance

you taste when you create new beauty.

Be strong, Hafiz!

Work here inside time,

where we fail, catch hold

again, and climb.

~ Hafiz

from The Hand of Poetry
translation by Inayat Khan and Coleman Barks

luminous, brimming, playful

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

photo by  M. I. Walker

 with thanks to love is a place

 

 

 the more one looks with eyes of gratitude and appreciation,

the keener your sight will be, the more will be revealed to you, 

the gates of the garden will open here and now.

 

the grace

The time of judging
Who is drunk or sober,
Who is right and who is wrong,
Who is closer to god, and who is farther away,
All that is over.

This caravan is led instead by a great delight,
The simple joy that sits with us now.

That is the grace.


~ Hafiz

I follow barefoot

.

I long for You so much

I follow barefoot Your frozen tracks

That are high in the mountains

That I know are years old.

I long for You so much 

I have even begun to travel

Where I have never been before.

Hafiz, there is no one in this world

Who is not looking for God.

Everyone is trudging along

With as much dignity, courage

And style

As they possibly 

Can.

~ Hafiz

from The Subject Tonight is Love

translations by Daniel Ladinsky

how did the rose

How

did the rose

ever open its heart

and give to this world all if its beauty?

It felt the encouragement of light against its being,

otherwise we all remain too

frightened.

~ Hafiz

to see this

I have come into this world to see this:
 the sword drop from men's hands
 even at the height of their arc of anger
 because we have finally realized there is just one flesh
 to wound and it is the Beloved's.

I have come into this world to see this: 
all creatures hold hands as we pass through
 this miraculous existence we share on the way
 to an even greater being of soul, 
a being of just ecstatic light, 
forever entwined and at play with Him.

I have come into this world to hear this:
 every song the earth has sung since it was conceived
 in the Divine's womb and began spinning from His wish,
 every song by wing and fin and hoof,
 every song by hill and field and tree
 and woman and child, every song
 of stream and rock, every song of tool and lyre and flute,
 every song of gold and emerald and fire,
 every song the heart should cry with magnificent dignity
 to know itself as God: for all other knowledge 
will leave us again in want and aching -
 only imbibing the glorious Sun will complete us. 

I have come into this world to experience this:
 men so true to love they would rather die
 before speaking an unkind word,
 men so true their lives are His covenant - the promise of hope.

I have come into this world to see this: 
the sword drop from men's hands 
even at the height of their arc of rage 
because we have finally realized there is just one flesh
 we can wound.

~ Hafiz

from Love Poems from God: 

Twelve Sacred voices from East and West

edited by Daniel Ladinsky