the singing cleaning woman

.

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

. 

question

.

What happens when your soul
begins to awaken
your eyes
and your heart
and the cells of your body
to the great Journey of Love?

First there is wonderful laughter 
and probably precious tears

and a hundred sweet promises
and those heroic vows
no one can ever keep.

But still God is delighted and amused
you once tried to be a saint.

What happens when your soul
begins to awake in this world

to our deep need to love

and serve the Friend?

Oh, the Beloved

will send you

one of his wonderful, wild companions –

Like Hafiz.

–Hafiz

.
 

light pours like rain

.

Who gets up early to discover the moment light begins?

Who finds us here circling, bewitched, like atoms?

—Rumi

...

God
pours light
into every cup,
quenching darkness.

The proudly pious

stuff their cups with parchment

and critique the taste of ink

while God pours light

and the trees lift their limbs

without worry of redemption,

every blossom a chalice.

Hafiz, seduce those withered souls

with words that wet their parched lips

as light

pours like rain

into every empty cup

set adrift on the Infinite Ocean.

–Hafiz

.

a sweet question

 .

The moon came to me last night

With a sweet question.

She said,

“The sun has been my faithful lover 

For millions of years.

Whenever I offer my body to him 

Brilliant light pours from his heart.

Thousands then notice my happiness 

And delight in pointing

toward my beauty.

Hafiz, 

Is it true that our destiny

Is to turn into Light

Itself?”

And I replied, 

"Dear moon, 

Now that your love is maturing,

We need to sit together

Close like this more often

So I might instruct you 

How to become

Who you

Are!"

–Hafiz

.

not to worry

.

A thousand times I have ascertained and found it to be true: the affairs of this world are really nothing into nothing.

Still though, we should dance.


—Hafiz

.

listen

.

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

.

My wish is that you may be loved to the point of madness. —André Breton

.

Find that flame, that existence,
That wonderful woman
Who can burn beneath the water. 

No other kind of light
Will cook the food you
Need.


–Hafiz

.

is it true?

.

is it true
that your mind is sometimes like
a battering ram
running all through the city,

shouting so madly inside and out
about the ten thousand things
that do not matter?


–Hafiz

.

grace(ful

.

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

.

this one is mine

.

I am a forest, and a night of dark trees: but he who is not afraid of my darkness, will find banks full of roses under my cypresses.


—Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spoke Zarathustra

.

Someone put
You on a slave block
And the unreal bought
You. Now I keep coming to your owner
Saying
"This one is mine."

You often overhear us talking
And this can make your heart leap
With excitement.
Don't worry,
I will not let sadness
Possess you.

I will gladly borrow all the gold
I need
To get you
Back.


–Hafiz

.

just one for day

.

For a day, just for one day,
Talk about that which disturbs no one

And bring some peace into your
Beautiful eyes.


—Hafiz

.

dear world

.

One regret, dear world

That I am determined not to have

When I am lying on my deathbed

Is that

I did not kiss you enough.


–Hafiz

.

my dear

 .

Run, my dear,
from anything that may not strengthen
your precious budding wings,

Run like hell, my dear,

from anyone likely to put a sharp knife

into the sacred, tender vision

of your beautiful heart.

We have a duty to befriend

those aspects of obedience

that stand outside of our house

and shout to our reason

"oh please, oh please

come out and play!"

For we have not come here to take prisoners,

or to confine our wondrous spirits,

But to experience ever and ever more deeply

our divine courage, freedom,

and Light.

–Hafiz

.

questions

.

I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question:
How are you?

I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question:
What is God?

If you think that the Truth can be known
From words,
If you think that the Sun and the Ocean
Can pass through that tiny opening Called the mouth,
O someone should start laughing!
 
Someone should start wildly Laughing Now!


–Hafiz

.

i used to know my name

.

I used to know my name. Now I don’t.
I think a river understands me.

For what does it call itself in that blessed moment when it starts emptying into the Infinite Luminous Sea, and opening every aspect of self wider than it ever thought possible?

Each drop of itself now running to embrace and unite with a million new friends.

And you were there, in my union with All, everyone who will ever see this page.


–Hafiz

.

the house we live in

.

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 translations

.

listen

  .

Love with no object.
There is a way of loving not attached to what is loved. 

Observe how water is with the ground, always moving toward the ocean, though the ground tries to hold water’s foot and not let it go.

This is how we are with wine and beautiful food, wealth and power, or just a dry piece of bread: we want and we get drunk with wanting, then the headache and bitterness afterward.

Those prove that the attachment took hold and held you back. Now you proudly refuse help. “My love is pure. I have an intuitive union with God. I don’t need anyone to show me how to be free!”

This is not the case. A love with no object is a true love.
All else, shadow without substance.

Have you seen someone fall in love with his own shadow? That’s what we’ve done. Leave partial loves and find one that’s whole.

Where is someone who can do that? They’re so rare, those hearts that carry the blessing and lavish it over everything.

Hold out your beggar’s robe and accept their generosity. Anything not coming from that will damage the cloth, like a sharp stone tearing your sincerity.

Keep that intact, and use clarity; call it reason or discernment, you have within you a deciding force that knows what to receive, what to turn from.

 –Rumi 

Mathnawi III: 2248-80

Coleman Barks version

 .

the seed cracked open

.

It used to be
That when I would wake in the morning
I could with confidence say,
“What am ‘I’ going to
Do?”
That was before the seed
Cracked open.
Now Hafiz is certain:
There are two of us housed
In this body,
Doing the shopping together in the market and
Tickling each other
While fixing the evening’s food.
Now when I awake
All the internal instruments play the same music:
“God, what love-mischief can 'We’ do
For the world
Today?”
 
–Hafiz
The Gift

.

chang1ng r00ms

.

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

.

the price of admission

.

You have not danced so badly, my dear,
Trying to hold hands with the Beautiful One.

You have waltzed with great style,

My sweet, crushed angel,
To have ever neared God's heart at all.

Our Partner is notoriously difficult to follow,
And even His best musicians are not always easy To hear.

So what if the music has stopped for a while.
So what
If the price of admission to the Divine
Is out of reach tonight.

So what, my dear,
If you do not have the ante to gamble for
Real Love.

The mind and the body are famous
For holding the heart ransom,

But Hafiz knows the Beloved's eternal habits.
Have patience,
For He will not be able to resist your longing For Long.

You have not danced so badly, my dear,
Trying to kiss the Beautiful One.

You have actually waltzed with tremendous style,
O my sweet, O my sweet crushed angel.


–Hafiz

.