this bleeding separation

In the school of mind you

learn a lot, and become

a true scholar for many to look up to.

In the school of Love, you become

a child to learn again.

*****

A pious one with a hundred beads on your rosary,

or a drunkard in a tavern,

any gift you bring the Beloved will be accepted

as long as you come in longing.

It is this most secret pain,

this bleeding separation,

which will guide you to your Heart of Hearts.

*****

If you do not give up the crowds

you won't find your way to Oneness.

If you do not drop your self

you won't find your true worth.

If you do not offer all you

have to the Beloved,

you will live this life free of that

pain which makes it worth living.

~ Abu-Said Abil-Kheir

English version by Vraje Abramian

from Nobody, Son of Nobody: 

Poems of Shaikh Abu-Saeed Abil-Kheir

every pore

Love came and emptied me of self,
every vein and every pore,
made into a container to be filled by the Beloved.
Of me, only a name is left,
the rest is You my Friend, my Beloved.

~ Abu-Said Abil-Kheir
 

the sanity I had been taught

When the desire for the Friend became real,

all existence fell behind.

The Beloved wasn't interested in my reasoning,

I threw it away and became silent.

The sanity I had been taught became a bore,

it had to be ushered off.

Insane, silent and in bliss,

I spend my days with my head

at the feet of My Beloved. 

~ Abu-Said Abil-Kheir

Shaikh Abu-Said Abil-Kheir was one of the earlier Sufi poets. He lived more than two centuries before Jelaluddin Rumi yet, like Rumi, much of his mysticism follows a similar path of annihilation in divine Love.

Abu-Said's poetry ranges from the ecstatic and celestial, to struggles with abandonment. His poetry has an immediacy and even a sort of devoutly wry petulance that can draw comparisons with the great Bengali poet, Ramprasad.

Abu Said referred to himself as “Nobody, Son of Nobody,” to convey the mystic's sense of having completely merged or disappeared into the Divine, leaving no trace of the ego behind.

He lived in Mayhana in what is modern day Turkmenistan, just north of Iran and Afghanistan in Central Asia.

with thanks to poetry chaikhana