Love is reckless
Love is reckless; not reason.
Reason seeks a profit.
Love comes on strong,
consuming herself, unabashed.
Yet, in the midst of suffering,
Love proceeds like a millstone,
hard surfaced and straightforward.
Having died of self-interest,
she risks everything and asks for nothing.
Love gambles away every gift God bestows.
Without cause God gave us Being;
without cause, give it back again.
Ghazal of Rumi
I was dead, then alive.
Weeping, then laughing.
The power of love came into me,
and I became fierce like a lion,
then tender like the evening star.
He said, ‘You’re not mad enough.
You don’t belong in this house.’
I went wild and had to be tied up.
He said, ‘Still not wild enough
to stay with us!’
I broke through another layer
into joyfulness.
He said, ‘Its not enough.’
I died.
Love has nothing to do with the five senses
Love has nothing to do with
the five senses and the six directions:
its goal is only to experience
the attraction exerted by the Beloved.
Afterwards, perhaps, permission
will come from God:
the secrets that ought to be told will be told
with an eloquence nearer to the understanding
of these subtle confusing allusions.
The secret is partner with none
but the knower of the secret:
in the skeptic's ear
the secret is no secret at all.
Your grief....
Your grief for what youve lost holds a mirror
up to where you're bravely working.
Expecting the worst, you look and instead,
here's the joyful face youve been wanting to see.
Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you would be paralyzed.
Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expand
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as birdwings.
Your grief....
Your grief for what youve lost holds a mirror
up to where you're bravely working.
Expecting the worst, you look and instead,
here's the joyful face youve been wanting to see.
Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you would be paralyzed.
Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expand
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as birdwings.
Let go of your worries
Let go of your worries
and be completely clear-hearted,
like the face of a mirror
that contains no images.
If you want a clear mirror,
behold yourself
and see the shameless truth,
which the mirror reflects.
If metal can be polished
to a mirror-like finish,
what polishing might the mirror
of the heart require?
Between the mirror and the heart
is this single difference:
the heart conceals secrets,
while the mirror does not.
Not Here
There's courage involved if you want
to become truth.
There is a broken- open place in a lover.
Where are those qualities of bravery and
sharp compassion in this group? What's the
use of old and frozen thought?
I want a howling hurt. This is not a treasury
where gold is stored; this is for copper.
We alchemists look for talent that
can heat up and change.
Lukewarm won't do. Halfhearted holding back,
well-enough getting by? Not here.
Lovers
O lovers, lovers it is time
to set out from the world.
I hear a drum in my soul's ear
coming from the depths of the stars.
Our camel driver is at work;
the caravan is being readied.
He asks that we forgive him
for the disturbance he has caused us,
He asks why we travelers are asleep.
Everywhere the murmur of departure;
the stars, like candles
thrust at us from behind blue veils,
and as if to make the invisible plain,
a wondrous people have come forth.
Be With Those Who Help Your Being
Be with those who help your being.
Don't sit with indifferent people, whose breath
comes cold out of their mouths.
Not these visible forms, your work is deeper.
A chunk of dirt thrown in the air breaks to pieces.
If you don't try to fly,
and so break yourself apart,
you will be broken open by death,
when it's too late for all you could become.
Leaves get yellow. The tree puts out fresh roots
and makes them green.
Why are you so content with a love that turns you yellow?
The Taste of Morning
Time's knife slides from the sheath,
as fish from where it swims.
Being closer and closer is the desire
of the body. Don't wish for union!
There's a closeness beyond that. Why
would God want a second God? Fall in
love in such a way that it frees you
from any connecting. Love is the soul's
light, the taste of morning, no me, no
we, no claim of being. These words
are the smoke the fire gives off as it
absolves its defects, as eyes in silence,
tears, face. Love cannot be said.
