The Mystic Blue
D.H. Lawrence
Out of the darkness, fretted sometimes in its sleeping,
Jets of sparks in fountains of blue come leaping
To sight, revealing a secret, numberless secrets keeping.
Sometimes the darkness trapped within a wheel
Runs into speed like a dream, the blue of the steel
Showing the rocking darkness now a-reel.
And out of the invisible, streams of bright blue drops
Rain from the showery heavens, and bright blue crops
Surge from the under-dark to their ladder-tops.
And all the manifold blue and joyous eyes,
The rainbow arching over in the skies,
New sparks of wonder opening in surprise.
All these pure things come foam and spray of the sea
Of Darkness abundant, which shaken mysteriously,
Breaks into dazzle of living, as dolphins that leap from the sea
Of midnight shake it to fire, so the secret of death we see.
Joseph
Joseph has come, the handsome one of this age,
A victory banner floating over spring flowers.
Those of you whose work it is to wake the dead,
Get up! This is a work day. The lion that
Hunts lions charges into a meadow. Yesterday
And the day before are gone. The coin of now
Slaps sown in your hand with the streets and
Buildings of this city all saying, the Prince
Is coming! A drumbeat starts. What we hear
About the Friend is true. The beauty of that
Peacefulness makes the whole world restless.
Spread your robe out to catch what sifts down
From the ninth level. You strange exiled
Bird with clipped wings, now you have four
Full feathered pinions. You heart closed up
In a chest, open; the Friend is entering you.
You feet, its time to dance! Don’t talk
About the old men. He’s young again. And
Don’t mention the past. Do you understand?
The beloved is here! You mumble, “But what
Excuse can I give the king?” When the king is
Making excuses to you! You say, “How can I
Escape his hand?” When that hand is trying
To help you. You saw fire, and light came.
You expected blood, and wine is being poured.
Don’t run from your tremendous good fortune.
Be silent and don’t try to add up what’s been
Given. An uncountable grace has come to you.
Rumi
From The Soul of Rumi
Translated by Coleman Barks
An Awkward Comparison
The physical world has no two things alike,
Every comparison is awkwardly rough.
You can place a lion next to a man,
but the placing is hazardous to both.
Say the body is like this lamp.
It has to have a wick and oil. Sleep and food.
If it doesn't get those, it will die,
and it's always burning those up, trying to die.
But where is the sun in this comparison?
It rises, and the lamp's light
mixes with the day.
Oneness,
which is the reality, cannot be understood
with lamp and sun images. The blurring
of a plural into a unity is wrong.
No image can describe
what of our fathers and mothers,
our grandfathers and grandmothers, remains.
Language does not touch the one
who lives in each of us.
Rumi
'The Essential Rumi' Coleman Barks/John Moyne
Happiness
Jane Hirshfield
I think it was from the animals
that St. Francis learned
it is possible to cast yourself
on the earth's good mercy and live.
From the wolf who cast off
the deep fierceness of her first heart
and crept into the circle of sunlight
in full wariness and wolf-hunger,
and was fed, and lived; from the birds
who came fearless to him until he
had no choice but return that courage.
Even the least amoeba touched on all sides
by the opulent Other, even the baleened
plankton fully immersed in their fate -
for what else might happiness be
than to be porous, opened, rinsed through
by the beings and things?
Nor could he forget those other companions,
the shifting, ethereal, shapeless:
Hopelessness, Desperateness, Loneliness,
even the fire-tongued Anger -
for they too waited with the patient Lion,
the glossy Rooster, the drowsy Mule, to step
out of the trees' protection and come in.
When you look carefully, this world is all war:
Mote fights with mote, like belief with unbelief. . . .
But in the light of the spiritual eye, our war
and our peace are not from ourselves: They are "between His
two fingers."
The war of nature, the war of acts, the war of
words--in the midst of the individual parts a frightful war.
The world subsists through this war: Look at
the four elements and resolve this difficulty.
The four elements are four sturdy pillars,
through which the roof of the heavens is kept in place.
But each pillar destroys the other: Water's pillar
destroys that of fire.
So creation is built upon opposites: Inevitably
we are warring over profit and loss. . . .
But that world is naught but everlasting and
flourishing, since it is not compounded of opposites.
Each opposite inflicts reciprocal annihilation
upon its opposite; when opposition disappears, subsistence
alone remains. . . .
Colorlessness is the root of all colors, peace
the root of all wars.
That world is the root of this abode full of
heartaches; union is the root of every parting and separation.
Why are we in such opposition, oh friend? Why
does Unity give birth to this multiplicity?
Because we are the branch, and the four
opposite elements the root. The root has engendered
its qualities in the branch.
Since the substance of the spirit is beyond
separation, it does not partake of these qualities: Its qualities are those of the divine Majesty.
Rumi
-- Mathnawi VI: 36, 45-50, 56-57, 59-63
Translation by William C. Chittick
"The Sufi Path of Love"
SUNY Press, Albany, 1983
FROM BOX TO BOX
Don't weep.
The joy that has gone
will come `round again in another form –
Have no doubt about this!
A child's first joy
comes from its mother's milk;
After the child is weaned
his joy comes from drinking sweet wine.
This supreme joy has no resting place -
It enters one form then another,
from box to box – an eternal movement
between heaven and earth.
Here it comes, pouring down from the sky,
seeping into the earth,
and rising up again as a bed of roses.
Now it is water, now a plate of rice,
Now the swaying trees, now a horse and rider.
It lies within these forms for awhile
then bursts forth to become something new.
Isn't this like our dreams? –
The body sleeps
while the soul moves on
to take other forms.
You say,
I dreamt I was a cypress, a bed of tulips,
the blossoms of roses and jasmines.
Then the soul returns, and you wake up –
the cypress is gone, the roses are gone.
I tell you truly,
everything you now see
will vanish like a dream.
I do not mean to trouble your, O friend,
with words so bold as these.
Perhaps you will only listen to God.
He speaks more gently than I.
But how will you ever hear Him with
All that blathering going on? –
Everyone is speaking about golden bread
yet no one has ever tasted it!
O my soul, where can I find rest
but in the shimmering love of his heart?
Where can I see the pure light of the Sun
but in the eyes of my own Shams-e Tabriz?
Rumi
Version by Jonathan Star
"A Garden Beyond Paradise: The Mystical Poetry of
Rumi"
Bantam Books, 1992
If you bake bread with the wheat that grows on my grave
you'll become drunk with joy and
even the oven will recite ecstatic poems.
If you come to pay your respects
even my gravestone will invite you to dance
so don't come without your drum.
Don't be sad. You have come to Gods feast.
Even death cannot stop my yearning
for the sweet kiss of my love.
Tear my shroud and wear it as a shirt,
the door will open and you'll hear
the music of your soul fill the air.
I am created from the ecstasy of love and
when I die, my essence will be released
like the scent of crushed rose petals.
My soul wants to leap and join
the towering soul of Shams.
Rumi
-- Ghazal (Ode) 683
Inscribed on Rumi's Sarcophagus
Translated by Azima Melita Kolin
and Maryam Mafi
"Rumi: Hidden Music"
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2001
