Cast All Your Votes for Dancing

By Hafiz

I know the voice of depression

Still calls to you.

I know those habits that can ruin your life

Still send their invitations.

But you are with the Friend now

And look so much stronger.

And you can stay that way

And even bloom!

Keep squeezing drops of the Sun

From your prayers and work and music

And from your companions’ beautiful laughter.

Keep squeezing drops of the Sun

From the sacred hands and glance of  your Beloved

And, my dear,

From the most insignificant movements

Of your own holy body.

Learn to recognize the counterfeit coins

that may buy you just a moment of pleasure,

But then drag you for days

Like a broken man

Behind a farting camel.

You are with the Friend now.

Learn what actions of yours delight Him,

What actions of yours bring freedom

And Love.

Whenever you say God’s name, dear pilgrim,

My ears wish my head was missiong

So they could finally kiss each other

And applaud all your nourishing wisdom!

O keep squeezing drops of the Sun

From your prayers and work and music

And from your companions’ beautiful laughter

And from the most insignificant movements

Of your own holy body.

Now, sweet one,

Be wise.

Cast all your votes for Dancing!

I Am So Glad

Start seeing everything as God,

But keep it a secret.

Become like a man who is Awestruck

And Nourished

Listening to the Golden Nightingale

Sing in a beautiful foreign language

While God invisibly nests

Upon its tounge.

Hafiz,

Who can you tell in this world

That when a dog runs up to you

Wagging its ecstatic tail,

You lean down and whisper in its ear,

“Beloved,

I am so glad You are happy to see me.

Beloved,

I am so glad,

So very glad You have come.”

Circles

by Hafiz

The moon is most happy

When it is full.

And the sun always looks

Like a perfectly minted gold coin

That was just Polished

And placed in flight

By God’s playful Kiss.

And so many varieties of fruit

Hang plump and round

From branches that seem like a Sculptor’s hands.

I see the beautiful curve of a pregnant belly

Shaped by a soul within,

And the earth itself,

And the planets and the Spheres-

I have gotten the hint:

There is something about circles

The Beloved likes.

Hafiz,

Within the Circle of a Perfect One

There is an Infinite Community

Of Light.

The Rose

How did the rose ever open its heart

And give to this world all of its beauty?

It felt the encouragement of light against its Being.

Otherwise we all remain too frightened.

-Hafiz

God 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!