Hafiz: "Now Is the Time"

Now is the time to know

That all that you do is sacred.

Now, why not consider
A lasting truce with yourself and God.

Now is the time to understand
That all your ideas of right and wrong
Were just a child's training wheels
To be laid aside
When you finally live
With veracity
And love.

Hafiz is a divine envoy
Whom the Beloved
Has written a holy message upon.

My dear, please tell me,
Why do you still
Throw sticks at your heart
And God?

What is it in that sweet voice inside
That incites you to fear?

Now is the time for the world to know
That every thought and action is sacred.

This is the time
For you to compute the impossibility
That there is anything
But Grace.

Now is the season to know
That everything you do
Is sacred.

"Today" by Hafiz. From the Penguin publication The Gift: Poems of Hafiz. Copyright © 1999 Daniel Ladinsky and used with his permission.
 
Art credit: "Raking Leaves," photograph by Chris Brown Photography. 

Curator's note: Today's post is a collaboration with subscriber Chris Brown, who selected one of his photographs to accompany Hafiz's poem. Chris writes of his selection: "Doing simple things, like chopping wood, carrying water and raking leaves, nourishes sacredness." He also notes that the photograph is "a tongue-in-cheek misrepresentation" of his wife, "as she is an energizer bunny, and never stops moving. It was a challenge to get her to sit still long enough to make this picture. "

Hafiz: "What Happens"

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?

O the Beloved

Will send you
One of His wonderful, wild companions—

Like Hafiz.

"What Happens" by Hafiz. Text as published in I Heard God Laughing: Renderings of Hafiz (Sufism Reoriented, 1996). Purported to be translated from the original Persian (Farsi) by Daniel Ladinsky.

Please note that Ladinsky's "translations" are controversial, considered by many to be less Hafiz than Ladinsky himself.

Art credit: "White Dove landing on hand," image by unknown photographer with Getty Images.

Hafiz: "Every Movement"

                                   I rarely let the word “No” escape
                                   From my mouth
                                   Because it is plain to my soul
                                   That God has shouted “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
                                   To every luminous movement in existence.


  
"Every Movement" by Hafiz. Text as published in I Heard God Laughing: Renderings of Hafiz (Sufism Reoriented, 1996). Purported to be translated from the original Persian (Farsi) by Daniel Ladinsky.

Please note that Ladinsky's "translations" are controversial, considered by many to be less Hafiz than Ladinsky himself.

Art credit: "Umbrella," image by unknown photographer.

 

Hafiz: "Today"

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.

"Today" by Hafiz, from The Gift: Poems of Hafiz, the Great Sufi Master. Purported to be translated from the original Persian (Farsi) by Daniel Ladinsky. © Penguin Compass, 1999.

Please note that Ladinsky's "translations" are controversial, considered by many to be less Hafiz than Ladinsky himself. 

Art credit: "One Step Closer," photograph taken in 2006 in Washington Square, San Francisco, by Victor Zhang (originally black and white).

Hafiz: "The Sun in Drag"

You are the sun in drag.

You are God hiding from yourself.

Remove all the “mine”—that is the veil.

Why ever worry about

Anything?

Listen to what your friend Hafiz

Knows for certain:

The appearance of this world

Is a Magi’s brilliant trick, though its affairs are

Nothing into nothing.

You are a divine elephant with amnesia

Trying to live in an ant

Hole.

Sweetheart, O sweetheart

You are God in

Drag!

"The Sun in Drag" by Hafiz, from The Gift: Poems of Hafiz, the Great Sufi Master. Purported to be translated from the original Persian (Farsi) by Daniel Ladinsky. © Penguin Compass, 1999.

Please note that Ladinsky's "translations" are controversial, considered by many to be less Hafiz than Ladinsky himself. 

Photography credit: "Hidden Sun," by biglaur (originally color).