Your Shape of Laughter

Let my words become like a skilled
Potter's hands,

Quieting,
Smoothing your life
With their knowledge,

Reaching into your tender core
And spreading you out
Like the morning

That leaps from the sun's amused wink
Onto hills, brows, and backs of so many
Beautiful laboring beasts.

God's duty is to make perfect
All your movements of mind, of limb,
And your ascending shape of laughter.

Watch the way my hands dance
With their diamond-edged brilliance

Cutting you open with music,
Reaching into your heart

And spilling the night sky-jar you carry
That is always full of giggling planets and stars.

My words are a divine potter's wheel.
If you stay near to me,
Please,Stay near to me -

And Hafiz will spin you into
Love.



(Hafiz-- Daniel Ladinsky Translation)