Quatrains..

Does sunset sometimes look like the sun's coming up?
Do you know what a faithful love is like?

You're crying. You say you've burned yourself.
But can you think of anyone who's not
hazy with smoke?

*

I want to hold you close like a lute,
so we can cry out with loving.

You would rather throw stones at a mirror?
I am your mirror, and here are the stones.

*

Late, by myself, in the boat of myself,
no light and no land anywhere,
cloudcover thick. I try to stay
just above the surface, yet I'm already under
and living within the ocean.

*

When I am with you, we stay up all night.
When you're not here, I can't go to sleep.

Praise God for these two insomnias!
And the difference between them.

*

The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that way.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along.

*

We are the mirror as well as the face in it.
We are tasting the taste this minute
of eternity. We are pain
and what cures pain, both. We are
the sweet cold water and the jar that pours.

Quietness

Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into colour.
Do it now.
You're covered with thick cloud.
Slide out the side. Die,
and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign
that you've died.
Your old life was a frantic running
from silence.

The speechless full moon
comes out now.





Rumi

Quatrains~

Never think the earth void or dead-
It's a hare, awake with shut eyes:
It's a sauce-pan, simmering with broth-
One clear look, you'll see it's in ferment.

*

What do you hope to find
In the soul's streets
In the bloody streets of the heart
That have no news, even of yourself?

*

Ignorant men are the sou's enemy
Shatter the jar of smug words
Cling for life to those who know
Prop a mirror in water, it rusts

*

How long will we fill our pockets
Like children with dirt and stones?
Let the world go. Holding it
We never know ourselves, never are air-born.

*

I lost my world, my fame, my mind-
The Sun appeared, and all the shadows ran.
I ran after them, but vanished as I ran -
Light ran after me and hunted me down.

*

Circle the Sun, you become a sun:
Circle a Master, and you become one.
You'd be a ruby, if you danced around this mine -
Dance around him, you'll gliter like gold.

*

Atom, you want to flee the sun?
Madman, give up!
You're a jar; fate's a stone-
Kick against it, you'll waste your wine.

*

I was once, like you, 'enlightend', 'rational',
I too scoffed at lovers.
Now I am drunk, crazed, thin with misery -
No-one's safe! Watch out!

*

Reason, leave now! You'll not find wisdom here!
Were you thin as a hair, there'd still be no room.
The Sun is risen! In its vast dazzle
Every lamp is drowned.

*

Body of earth, don't talk of earth
Tell the story of pure mirrors
The Creator has given you this splendour -
Why talk of anything else?

*

This body's a mirror of heaven:
Its energies make angels jealous.
Our purty astounds seraphim:
Devils shiver at our nerve.

*
Suddenly,he is here -
Heads touch, secrets start singing.
Time's barn is flattened by storm-wind
We crumple on its straws like drunks.




Rumi

Clothes Abandoned On The Shore

Your body is here with us,
but your heart is in the meadow.
You travel with the hunters
though you yourself are what they hunt.

Like a reed flute,
you are encased by your body,
wth a restless breathy sound inside.

You are a diver;
your body is just clothing left at the shore.
You are a fish whose way is through water.

In this se there are many bright veins
and some that are dark.
The heart receives its light
from those bright veins.

If you lift your wing
I can show them to you.
You are hidden like the blood within,
and you are shy to the touch.

Those same veins sing a melancholy tune
in the sweet-stringed lute,
music from a shoreless sea
whose waves roar out of infinity.



Rumi

Quatrains

Pale sunlight,
pale the wall.

Love moves away.
The light changes.

I need more grace than I thought.

*

I would love to kiss you.
The price of kissing is your life.

Now my loving is running toward my life shouting,
What a bargain, let's buy it.

*

You have said what you are.
I am what I am.
Your actions in my head,
my head here in my hands
 with something circling inside.
I have no name
for what circles
so perfectly

*

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?

*

They try to say what you are, spiritual or sexual?
They wonder about Solomon and all his wives.

In the body of the world, they say, there is a soul
and you are that.

But we have ways within each other
that will never be said by anyone.

*

ome to the orchad in Spring
There is light and wine, and sweethearts
     in the pomegranate flowers.

If you do not come, these do not matter.
If you do come, these do not matter.

*

Walk to the well.
Turn as the earth and the moon turn,
circling what they love.
Whatever circles comes from the center.

*

I circle your nest tonight,
around and around until morning
when a breath of air says, Now,
and the Friend holds up like a goblet
some anonymous skull.

*

No better love than love with no object,
no more satisfying work than work with no purpose.

If you could give up tricks and clevernss,
that would be the cleverest trick!




Rumi

And He Is With Us

Totally unexpected my guest arrived.
'Who is it?' asked my heart.
'The face of the moon,' said my soul.

As he entered the house,
we all ran into the street madly looking for the moon.
'I'm in here,' he was calling from inside,
but we were calling him outside unaware of his call.
Our drunken ightingale is singing in the garden,
and we are cooing like doves,' Where, where, where?'

A crowd ormed: 'Where's the thief?'
And the thief among us is saying,
'Yeah, where's the thief.'
All our voices became mixed together
and not one voice stood out from the others.

And He is with you means He is searching with you.
He is nearer to you than yourself. Why look outside?
Become like melting snow; wash yourself of yourself.
With love your inner voice will find a tongue
grwing like a silent white lily in the heart.



Rumi

Shell.

This cage is cold and lonely
This shell is silent and warm.
Nothing to hurt me; no one to hurt.
This is safety.
Rain drips down this window in front
Acid hurls at my back
But I am not stung,
I can not sting.
This is my shell.
My little enclosure,
Hollow, lonely, safe.
It is dark in here,
I do not feel
the loving touch of light.
I can not give, my light.
Do I stay, or should I go?
Do I give back what I once stole?
Should I stay here, alone, yet safe?
Or do I give my all,
draining all my so-called light,
Then lie down and die,
As I rot,
from the inside out.