Rumi: Bridge to the Soul

I just received and started reading the new book of Rumi poems translated by Coleman Barks and titled - Rumi: Bridge to the Soul. Journey into the Music and Silence of the Heart.

What a beautiful title! Coleman Barks has spent over 30 years of his life painstakingly recording and translating the ecstatic poems of Rumi - a 13th century Sufi Mystic. If that is not an endeavor of love - I don't know what is!

Here are some excerpts from a couple of poems...

As The Sky Does in Water

For the grace of the presence be grateful...
Images. Presence plays with form,
fleeing and hiding as the sky does in water,
now one place, now nowhere.

Imagination cannot contain the absolute.
These poems are elusive
because the presence is.

I love the rose that is not a rose,
but the second I try to speak it, any name
for God becomes so-and-so and vanishes.

What you thought to draw lifts off the paper,
as what you love slips from your heart.

Music and Silence

Lovers, union is here,
the meeting we have wanted,
the fire, the joy.

Let sadness and any fear of death
leave the room.

The sun's glory comes back.
Wind shakes our bells.

We are counters in your hand
passing easily through.

Music begins.
Your silence deepen that.

Were you to put words with this
we would not survive the song.

And more excepts tomorrow!