Rumi - Part III
Here are a few more poems I wanted to share from Rumi: Bridge to the Soul - by Coleman Barks - which was recently published to commemorate Rumi's 800th birthday. I have read this small tome over and over again - and with each reading I fall in love with different poems...
Earsight
Do you want the sweetness of food
or the sweetness of the one
who puts sweetness in the food?
There are amazing things in the ocean,
and there is one who is the ocean.
Think of a carpenter's alert comprehension
when he builds a house.
Now think of the one
who creates consciousness.
It takes skill to extract oil from a nut.
Now consider how sight lives in the eye.
There is a night full of the wildness
of wanting. Then dawn comes.
You take my hand in yours.
There are those who doubt
that this can happen...
Enough words. Friend,
you can make the ear see.
Speak the rest of this poem
in that language.
We Cannot Decide
There has never been beauty like yours.
Your face, your eyes, your presence.
We cannot decide which we love most,
your gracefulness or your generosity.
I came with many knots in my heart,
like the magician's rope.
You undid them all at once.
I see now the splendor of the student
and that of the teacher's art.
Love and this body sit inside your presence,
one demolished, the other drunk.
We smile. We weep, tree limbs
turning sere, then green.
Any power that comes through us is you.
Any wish. What does a rock know of April?
It is better to ask the flowery grass,
the jasmine, and the redbud branch.
You Make Your Own Oil As You Cook
Your kindness cannot be said.
You open doors in the sky.
You ease the heart and make
God's qualities visible.
We taste your honey and fly around
as happy as bumblebees.
You remember what was agreed upon
before the the universe began.
You hear the sound of those praise-words,
Am I not (Yes!) your lord?
Poisonous people, you have little
to do with, only what is necessary.
You make your own oil as you cook,
beyond any recipe or idea of soul growth.
You look to meet another someone like
Shams Tabriz. You will not find that.
Earsight
Do you want the sweetness of food
or the sweetness of the one
who puts sweetness in the food?
There are amazing things in the ocean,
and there is one who is the ocean.
Think of a carpenter's alert comprehension
when he builds a house.
Now think of the one
who creates consciousness.
It takes skill to extract oil from a nut.
Now consider how sight lives in the eye.
There is a night full of the wildness
of wanting. Then dawn comes.
You take my hand in yours.
There are those who doubt
that this can happen...
Enough words. Friend,
you can make the ear see.
Speak the rest of this poem
in that language.
We Cannot Decide
There has never been beauty like yours.
Your face, your eyes, your presence.
We cannot decide which we love most,
your gracefulness or your generosity.
I came with many knots in my heart,
like the magician's rope.
You undid them all at once.
I see now the splendor of the student
and that of the teacher's art.
Love and this body sit inside your presence,
one demolished, the other drunk.
We smile. We weep, tree limbs
turning sere, then green.
Any power that comes through us is you.
Any wish. What does a rock know of April?
It is better to ask the flowery grass,
the jasmine, and the redbud branch.
You Make Your Own Oil As You Cook
Your kindness cannot be said.
You open doors in the sky.
You ease the heart and make
God's qualities visible.
We taste your honey and fly around
as happy as bumblebees.
You remember what was agreed upon
before the the universe began.
You hear the sound of those praise-words,
Am I not (Yes!) your lord?
Poisonous people, you have little
to do with, only what is necessary.
You make your own oil as you cook,
beyond any recipe or idea of soul growth.
You look to meet another someone like
Shams Tabriz. You will not find that.
Comments