Sheba's Throne (1)

When the Queen of Sheba came to Solomon,

she left behind her kingdom and her wealth,

the same way lovers leave their reputations.

Her servants meant nothing to her,

less than a rotten onion.

Her palaces and orchards, so many piles of dung.

She heard the inner meaning of LA: No.

She came to Solomon with nothing, except her throne.

As the writer's pen becomes a friend,

as the tool the workman uses day after day

becomes deeply familiar, so her filigreed throne

was her one attachment.

It was a large throne and difficult to transport,

because it could not be taken apart,

being as cunningly put together as the human body.

A Small Green Island

There is a small green island

where one white cow lives alone, a meadow of an island.

The cow grazes till nightfull, full and fat,

but during the night she panics

and grows thin as a single hair.

What shall I eat tomorrow? There is nothing left.

By dawn the grass has grown up again, waist-high.

The cow starts eating and by dark

the meadow is clipped short.

She is full of strength and energy, but she panics

in the dark as before and grows abnormally thin overnight.

The cow does this over and over,

and this is all she does.

She never thinks, This meadow has never failed

to grow back. Why should I be afraid every night

that it won't. The cow is the bodily soul.

The island field is this world where that grows

lean with fear and fat with blessing, lean and fat.

White cow, don't make yourself miserable

with what's to come, or not to come.

Half-Heartedness

Gamble everything for love,

if you are a true human being.

If not, Leave this gathering.

Half-heartedness does not reach

into majesty. You set out

to find God, but then you keep

stopping for long periods

at mean-spirited roadhouses.

The Buddhist Sufi

Last night my soul asked a question of existence.

Why are you upsidedown with flames in your belly?

Happy, unhappy, indigo-orange like the sky?

Why are you an off-balance wobbling millstone,

like the Buddhist Sufi, Ibrahim Balkhi,

who was king, beggar, buddha, and dervish?

Existence answers, All this was made

by the one who hides inside you.

You are like a beautiful new bride,

quick to anger, stubborn,

hot, naked, but still veiled.

Bewilderment

There are many guises for intelligence.

One part of you is gliding in a high windstream,

while your more ordinary notions

take little steps and peck at the ground.

Conventional knowledge is death to our souls,

and it is not really ours. It is laid on.

Yet we keep saying we find "rest" in these "beliefs."

We must become ignorant of what we have been taught

and be instead bewildered.

Run from what is profitable and comfortable.

Distrust anyone who praises you.

Give your investment money, and the interest

on the capital, to those who are actually destitute.

Forget safety. Live where you fear to live.

Destroy your reputation. Be notorious.

I have tried prudent planning long enough.

From now on, I'll be mad.

Fog

As fog rising off the sea

covers the sea,

so it is noble work to build

coherent philosophical discourses,

but they block the sun of truth.

See God's qualities as an ocean

and this world as foam

on the purity of that ocean.

Here is the mystery.

This intricate, astonishing world

is proof of God's existence,

even as it covers the beauty.

One flake from the wall of a goldmine

does not give much idea

what it is like

when the sun shines in

and turns the air

and the workers golden.

An Evolving Course

We began as a mineral.

We emerged into plant life and into

the animal state, and then to being human.

And always we have forgotten our former states,

except in early spring,

when we dimly recall being green again.

That is how a young person turns

toward a teacher, how a baby leans

toward the breast, without knowing

the secret of its desire,

yet turning instinctively.

So humankind is a being led along

an evolving course through this migration 

of intelligences, and though we seem

to be sleeping, there is an inner wakefulness

that directs the dream.

It will eventually startle us back

to the truth of who we are.