| Poems by Rumi: The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don't go back to sleep. You must ask for what you really want. Don't go back to sleep. People are going back and forth across the door sill where the two worlds touch. The door is round and open. Don't go back to sleep. Daylight, full of small dancing particles and the one great turning, our souls are dancing with you, without feet, they dance. Can you see them when I whisper in your ear? "Would You Bow?" If the Friend rose inside you, would you bow? Would you wonder where that one came from and how? If you say, "I will bow," that's important. If you answer, "But can I be sure?" it will keep the meeting from happening, as busy people rush there and back here murmuring, Now I know; no, I don't know now. Have you seen a camel with its eyes covered turn and walk one way, then turn another? Be silent and revolve with no will. Don't raise your hand to ask anything. Holy one, sitting in the body's well like Joseph, a rope is there in front of you. Lift your hand to that! A blind man has bought you for eighteen counterfeit coins. Empty metal cups bang together, and the full moon slides out of hiding. Make one sound, please! You are the precious hyacinth that the sickle will spare, not the wheat plant Adam ate. I remind you with these poems to dress in the flower of God's qualities, not your torn robe of self-accusation. -- Ghazal (Ode) 2938 Version by Coleman Barks, with Nevit Ergin And two by Kabir: Are you looking for me? Are you looking for me? I am in the next seat. My shoulder is against yours. you will not find me in the stupas, not in Indian shrine rooms, nor in synagogues, nor in cathedrals: not in masses, nor kirtans, not in legs winding around your own neck, nor in eating nothing but vegetables. When you really look for me, you will see me instantly -- you will find me in the tiniest house of time. Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God? He is the breath inside the breath. Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive. Jump into experience while you are alive! Think...and think... while you are alive. If you don't break your ropes while you're alive, do you think ghosts will do it after? The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic just because the body is rotten -- that is all fantasy. What is found now is found then. If you find nothing now, you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death. If you make love with the divine now, in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire. So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is, Believe in the Great Sound! Kabir says this: When the Guest is being searched for, it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that does all the work. Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity. (translated by Robert Bly) The Man Watching Rainer Maria Rilke I can tell by the way the trees beat, after So many dull days, on my worried windowpanes That a storm is coming, And I hear the far-off fields say things I can't bear without a friend, I can't love without a sister. The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on Across the woods and across time, And the world looks as if it had no age; The landscape, like a line in the psalm book, Is seriousness and weight and eternity. What we choose to fight is so tiny! What fights with us is so great! If only we would let ourselves be dominated As things do by some immense storm, We would become strong too, and not need names. When we win it's with small things, And the triumph itself makes us small. What is extraordinary and eternal Does not want to be bent by us. I mean the Angel who appeared To the wrestlers of the Old Testament: When the wrestlers' sinews Grew long like metal strings, He felt them under his fingers Like chords of deep music. Whoever was beaten by this Angel (who often simply declined the fight) Went away proud and strengthened And great from that harsh hand, That kneaded him as if to changes his shape. Winning does not tempt that man. This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively, By constantly greater beings. And one by Robert Bly: The Night Abraham Called To the Stars Do you remember the night Abraham first called To the stars? He cried to Saturn: “You are my Lord!” How happy he was! When he saw the Dawn Star, He cried, “You are my Lord!” How destroyed he was When he watched them set. Friends, he is like us: We take as our Lord the stars that go down. We are faithful companions to the unfaithful stars. We are diggers, like badgers; we love to feel The dirt flying out from behind our hind claws. And no one can convince us that mud is not Beautiful. It is our badger soul that thinks so. We are ready to spend the rest of our life Walking with muddy shoes in the wet fields. We resemble exiles in the kingdom of the serpent. We stand in the onion fields looking up at the night. My heart is a calm potato by day, and a weeping, Abandoned woman by night. Friend, tell me what to do, Since I am a man in love with the setting stars. Robert Bly |
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