October 30, 2026

Grieve Not

Joseph, who was lost, will return to Canaan, grieve not; the house of sorrows will turn into a rose garden, grieve not.

Hafiz, the fourteenth-century Persian poet of Shiraz, wrote this ghazal during years when shifting rulers and court politics left his own standing and livelihood uncertain. He turns to the story of Joseph, sold into slavery by his brothers and imprisoned on false charges, who endured and was eventually restored to his father and raised to power in Egypt. Hafiz repeats the refrain gham makhor, grieve not, like a vow he is making to himself rather than a comfort he already feels. Centuries later it still speaks to anyone waiting out a hard season, insisting that patience is a discipline, not a passive hope.