In Sufi poetry, you often hear the call, “O cupbearer, fill my cup.”
But this cup is not an ordinary cup. It is the lover’s heart, at the exact moment it becomes clear enough to reflect the beauty of the beloved.
In that moment, the heart reflects a beauty that is not physical, not personal; and as it reflects, separation dissolves.
The lover and the beloved are no longer seen as separate—only as One.
The cup that is the heart does not create the vision. It does not invent light. It only reflects what was always there.
So when the lover says, “O cupbearer, fill my cup,” he is not asking for anything worldly. He is asking for grace—the grace that polishes the heart—so nothing stands between it and what it reflects.
As Hafez says:
All these images of wine and painted forms of love
are nothing but a single flash of the Saqi’s face, falling into the depth of the cup.
این همه عکسِ می و نقشِ نگارین که نمود
یک فروغِ رخِ ساقی است که در جام افتاد
