If I rub my face on the ground,
My new moon would rise in the skies,
Winter and summer become spring.
To me all days are holidays.

Let no cloud cast a tall shadow
On the gleaming light of my moon
Whose fullness must never grow dim:
From earth to sky its glimmer sprays.

From the heart's solitary cell
Its glitter drives out the darkness.
How could that gloom be squeezed into
The same cell with the piercing rays?

I see my moon right here on earth,
What would I do with all the skies?
Rains of mercy pour down on me
From this ground where I fix my gaze.

What if Yunus is a lover
Many are the lovers of God.
Yunus, too, bows his head, because
The lovers of God are ablaze.

Yunus Emre

I used to yearn for God;
If I found Him, what then?
Day and night I shed tears;
If I laugh now, what then?

I was a ball rolling
On the holy men's field;
Now I am a bat on
The sultan's course, what then?

A bunch o f red roses
At the sages' parley,
I bloomed, grew ripe and big;
If I wilted, what then?

Scholars and learned men
Found it in pious schools;
I found the vital truth
In the tavern, what then?

Yunus Emre

My fleeting life has come and gone
A wind that blows and passes by.
I feel it has been all too brief,
Just like the blinking of an eye.

To this true word God will attest:
The Spirit is the Body's guest,
Some day it will vacate the breast
As birds, freed from their cages, fly.

Life, my good man, can be likened
To the land that the farmer sows:
Lying scattered all over the soil,
Some of the seeds sprout, but some die.

If you visit and give water
To a sick man who needs care,
With God's wine, he shall hail you there
One day when you soar to the sky.

Yunus Emre

We have no knowledge of whose turn has come
While Death roams about freely among us:
Dashing through men's lives as His own orchard,
He plucks and strips anyone He chooses.

He crushes people, leaves them with backs bent,
And makes multitudes shed tears of lament.
He plunders estates to His heart's content,
Routs men with all His might till Life oozes.

Before the heroes grow old and decrepit,
Death strikes and lowers them into the pit
Without any forewarning about it.
With gleaming eyes, Death enjoys His ruses.

Yunus Emre

That sounds wonderful...

Good poetry
Makes a beautiful naked woman
Materialize from
Words,

Who then says,
With a sword precariously waving
In her hands,

"If you look at my loins
I will cut off your head,

And reach down and grab your spirit
By its private parts,

And carry you off to heaven
Squealing in joy."

Hafiz says,
"That sounds wonderful, just
Wonderful.

Someone please - start writing
Some great
Lines."

Hafiz, 'The subject tonight is love' - versions by Daniel Ladinsky

Don't Despair...

Joseph to his father in Canaan shall return, don't despair walk on;
and Jacob's hut will brighten with flowers, don't despair walk on.

Aching hearts heal in time, vanished hopes reappear,
the disparate mind will be pacified, don't despair walk on.

As the spring of life grows the newly green meadow,
roses will crown the sweet nightingale's song, don't despair walk on

If the world does not turn to your whims these few days,
cosmic cycles are preparing to change, don't despair walk on.

If desperation whispers you'll never know God,
it's the talk of hidden games in the veil, don't despair walk on.

O heart, when the vast flood slashes life to its roots,
Captain Noah waits to steer you ashore, don't despair walk on.

If you trek as a pilgrim through sands to Kaabeh
with thorns lodged deep in your soul shouting why, don't despair walk on

Though oases hide dangers and your destiny's far,
there's no pathway that goes on forever, don't despair walk on.

My trials and enemies face me on their own,
but mystery always backs up my stand, don't despair walk on.

Hafez, weakened by poverty, alone in the dark,
this night is your pathway into the light, don't despair walk on.

Hafiz,
From: 'The Spiritual Wisdom of Hafez'
Haleh Pourafzal and Roger Montgomery

A Suspended Blue Ocean

The sky
Is a suspended blue ocean.
The stars are the fish
That swim.

The planets are the white whales
I sometimes hitch a ride on,

And the sun and all light
Have forever fused themselves

Into my heart and upon
My skin.

There is only one rule
On this Wild Playground,

For every sign Hafiz has ever seen
Reads the same.

They all say,

"Have fun, my dear; my dear, have fun,
In the Beloved's Divine
Game,

O, in the Beloved's
Wonderful Game."

Hafiz, From: 'The Subject Tonight Is Love' translated by Daniel Ladinsky

Laughing at the word two

Only

That Illumined
One

Who keeps
Seducing the formless into form

Had the charm to win my
Heart.

Only a Perfect One

Who is always
Laughing at the word
Two

Can make you know

Of

Love.

Hafiz, From: 'The Gift' translated by Daniel Ladinsky

Would you think it odd...

Would you think it odd if Hafiz said,

"I am in love with every church
And mosque
And temple
And any kind of shrine

Because I know it is there
That people say the different names
Of the One God."

Would you tell your friends
I was a bit strange if I admitted

I am indeed in love with every mind
And heart and body.

O I am sincerely
Plumb crazy
About your every thought and yearning
And limb

Because, my dear,
I know
That it is through these

That you search for Him

Hafiz, From: 'I heard God Laughing - Renderings of Hafiz' by Daniel Ladinsky

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.

Hafiz, translated by Daniel Ladinsky