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 can finally live
with veracity and love.

My love, 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 deeply reckon with
the impossibility that there
is anything but grace.

Now is the season to know
that everything you do
is sacred.

– Hafiz
From The Gift: Poems by Hafiz,
translated by Daniel Ladinsky
(Penguin Compass, 1999)

NEXT: You Will Know It

For more of the poetry of Hafiz at The Wild Reed, see:
• Your Scent I Know
• Never Say It Is Not God
• It Happens All the Time in Heaven

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• A Longing and a Prayer
• Meeting (and Embodying) the Lover God
• The Gorgeous One
• Beloved and Antlered
• Vessels of the Holy
• "Make Us Lovers, God of Love"
• No Altar More Sacred
• An Erotic Encounter with the Divine
• Redemption in the Sensuousness of the Moment
• Sometimes I Wonder . . .

Image: "Mahad, 7/30/18" by Michael J. Bayly.