It Cuts the Plough Reins

by Hafiz

What does purity do? It cuts the plow reins. It keeps you from working and dining in the mud.

It frees you from living behind a big ox that bites.

What can purity do, my dear? It can lift your heart on a rising, bucking Sun that makes the soul hunger to reach the roof of creation.

It offers what the whole world wants: real knowledge and power.

It offers what the wise crave: the priceless treasure of freedom.

Pure divine love is no meek priest or tight banker;

it will smash all your windows and only then throw in the holy gifts.

It will allow you to befriend life and light and sanity and not even mind waking to another day.

It reveals the excitement of the present and the beauty of precision.

It confers vitality and a sublime clarity until finally all the heart can do is burst open with great love and cheer!

O purity, O dear truth and friend within me, why didn’t you tell me sooner you could do all this—

cut the reins of illusion, so we can all just go wild, loving God and everyone all day!

(from A Year with Hafiz: Daily Contemplations translated by Daniel Ladinsky)