My Brilliant Image

a poem by Hafiz (translated by Daniel Ladinsky)

Hafiz is one of my favorite poets. A Sufi mystic and ecstatic, he delights in surprising the reader with their own beauty, divinity, and light… and with God’s overwhelming love for each of us, despite our ugliness, profanity, and darkness.

One day the sun admitted,
I am just a shadow.
I wish I could show you
The Infinite Incandescence
That has cast my brilliant image!

I wish I could show you,
When you are lonely or in darkness,
The astonishing Light
Of your own Being!

Hands Open Candle, by Myriams-Fotos

Some days, it might be difficult enough to accept that there is divine Light—an astonishing amount of it, even—surrounding us. Some days, we might be building up the loneliness and darkness around us, like a shield. And yet, the Light is not only around us but within us. It is a seed planted there, in the image and likeness of the Divine One, and we cannot escape it.

We are Light, my friends. You are Light.