Tuesday, March 8, 2011

I melted in it and came home







I exhausted myself, looking.
No one ever finds this by trying.

I melted in it and came home,
where every jar is full,
but no one drinks.



~ Lalla
from Naked Songs
translations by Coleman Barks




Monday, March 7, 2011

green-stripped melons






.


They lie
under stars in a field.
They lie under rain in a field.
Under sun.
.
Some people
are like this as well—
like a painting
hidden beneath another painting.
.
An unexpected weight
the sign of their ripeness.

.
~ Jane Hirshfield
from Alaska Quarterly

.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

overspilling








Of all that God has shown me
I can speak just the smallest word,
Not more than a honey bee
Takes on his foot
From an overspilling jar.


~ Mechtild of Magdeburg
from Women in Praise of the Sacred




Saturday, March 5, 2011

with you



.


.


O my Lord,
the stars glitter
and the eyes of men are closed.
Kings have locked their doors
and each lover is alone with his love.
.
Here, I am alone with you.

.
~ Rabi'a
from Women in Praise of the Sacred
art by Leonardo da Vinci

Friday, March 4, 2011

I was passionate



.




I was passionate,
filled with longing,
I searched
far and wide.

But the day
that the Truthful One
found me,
I was at home.



~ Lalla
translated by Jane Hirshfield


Thursday, March 3, 2011

All will come again into its strength


.







All will come again into its strength:
the fields undivided, the waters undammed,
the trees towering and the walls built low.
And in the valleys, people as strong
and varied as the land.
.
And no churches where God
is imprisoned and lamented
like a trapped and wounded animal.
The houses welcoming all who knock
and a sense of boundless offering
in all relations, and in you and me.
.
No yearning for an afterlife, no looking beyond,
no belittling of death,
but only longing for what belongs to us
and serving earth, least we remain unused.





~ Rainer Maria Rilke
 The Book of Pilgrimage, II,25

.

the kings of the world are old and feeble








The kings of the world are old and feeble.
They bring forth no heirs.

Their sons are dying before they are men,
and their pale daughters
abandon themselves to the brokers of violence.

Their crowns are exchanged for money
and melted down into machines,
and there is no health in it.

Does the ore feel trapped
in coins and gears?  In the petty life
imposed upon it
does it feel homesick for earth?

If metal could escape
from coffers and factories,
and the torn-open mountains
close around it again,

we would be whole.





~ Rainer Maria Rilke
from The Book of Pilgrimage, II,24

.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

no miracles, please


.


.
All who seek you
test you.
And those who find you 
bind you to image and gesture.
.
I would rather sense you
as the earth senses you.
In my ripening 
ripens
what you are.
.
I need from you no tricks
to prove you exist.
Time, I know,
is other than you.
.
No miracles, please.
just let your laws
become clearer
from generation to generation.

.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
from The Book of Pilgrimage, II,15

.

violence






.

I believe that 
those who have used violence 
have betrayed all true revolution, 
they have changed nothing, 
they have simply enforced with greater brutality
 the anti-spiritual and anti-human drives 
that are destructive of truth and love in man.
.

~ Thomas Merton
from A Life in Letters

.

cold light



.


.

Diamond-like clarity travels cold
the manifold currents, cracks self-concern,
reveals self-suffering, crumbles
the crooked walls of the darkness
of presumed otherness
This far-reaching indifference of wisdom
vision unfolds an always lurking compassion
only when fused in communal warmth,
only by passage in the movement of breath
Breath, the reach of hearts,
the rhythm of living and dying,
the reach solitary voices
meeting in the night.

.
~ Jane Hirshfield
from After

.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

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


Monday, February 28, 2011

conceit



.


.

It is conceit that kills us 
and makes us cowards instead of gods. 
.
Under the great Command: Know thy self, and that thou art mortal! 
we have become fatally self-conscious, fatally self-important, fatally entangled in the cocoon coils of our conceit. 
.
Now we have to admit we can't know ourselves, we can only know about ourselves. 
And I am not interested to know about myself any more, 
I only entangle myself in the knowing. 
.
Now let me be myself, 
now let me be myself, and flicker forth, 
now let me be myself, in the being, one of the gods. 
.

~ D.H. Lawrence

.

for a leader




 


 
 
 

May the gift of leadership awaken in you as a vocation,
Keep you mindful of the providence that calls you to serve.
 
As high over the mountains the eagle spreads its wings,
May your perspective be larger than the view from the foothills.
 
When the way is flat and dull in times of gray endurance,
May your imagination continue to evoke horizons.
 
When thirst burns in times of drought,
May you be blessed to find the wells.
 
May you have the wisdom to read time clearly
And know when the seed of change will flourish.
 
In your heart may there be a sanctuary
For the stillness where clarity is born.
 
May your work be infused with passion and creativity
And have the wisdom to balance compassion and challenge.
 
May your soul find the graciousness
To rise above the fester of small mediocrities.
May your power never become a shell
Wherein your heart would silently atrophy.
May you welcome your own vulnerability
As the ground where healing and truth join.
 
May integrity of soul be your first ideal.
The source that will guide and bless your work.
 
 
 


~ John O'Donohue
from To Bless the Space Between Us
photo by Reuters






.

present


.

.

The incarnate Word is with us,
is still speaking, is present
always, yet leaves no sign
but everything that is.

.

~ Wendell Berry
from Given
IX, Sabbaths 1999

.

a pile of ashes





Your pride in yourself and your wanting,
these steal your energy along the road.

If you can kill these robbers
and become the servant of everyone,
you'll meet the Lord in meditation
and see what you used to protect
as just a pile of ashes.


~ Lalla
from Naked Song
translations by Coleman Barks