streaming

When the path ignites a soul,

there's no remaining in place.

The foot touches ground,

but not for long.

The way where love tells its secret

stays always in motion,

and there is no you there, and no reason.

The rider urges his horse to gallop,

and so doing, throws himself

under the flying hooves.

In love-unity there's no old or new.

Everything is nothing.

God alone is.

For lovers the phenomena-veil is very transparent,

and the delicate tracings on it cannot

be explained with language.

Clouds burn off as the sun rises,

and the love-world floods with light.

But cloud-water can be obscuring,

as well as useful.

There is an affection that covers the glory,

rather than dissolving into it.

It's a subtle difference,

like the change in Persian

from the word "friendship"

to the word "work."

That happens with just a dot

above or below the third letter.

There is a seeing of the beauty

of union that doesn't actively work

for the inner conversation.

Your hand and feet must move,

as a stream streams, working

as its Self, to get to the ocean.

Then there's no more mention

of the search.

Being famous, or being a disgrace,

who's ahead or behind, these considerations

are rocks and clogged places

that slow you. Be as naked as a wheat grain

out of its husk and sleek as Adam.

Don't ask for anything other

than the presence.

Don't speak of a "you"

apart from That.

A full container cannot be more full.

Be whole, and nothing.

~ Hakim Sanai

version by Coleman Barks

from  The Hand of Poetry: Five Mystic Poets of Persia, 

with Lectures by Inayat Khan