Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Entering the Shell

Marc Chagall, Village by Night

Love is alive,
and someone borne along by it is more alive
than lions roaring or men in their fierce courage.

Bandits ambush others on the road.
They get wealth, but they stay in one place.

Lovers keep moving, never the same,
not for a second.

What makes others grieve, they enjoy.
When they look angry, do not believe their faces.
It is like spring lightning, a joke before the rain.

They chew thorns thoughtfully,
along with pasture grass.
Gazelle and lioness have dinner.

Love is invisible, except here, in us.
Sometimes I praise love. Sometimes love praises me.

Love, a little shell somewhere
on the ocean floor, opens its mouth.

You and I and we, those imaginary beings,
enter the shell as a single drop of water.

2 comments:

Elisabeth said...

Lorenzo quoted from this Rumi poem Ruth on Terresa's blog, see; http://thechocolatechipwaffle.blogspot.com/: after Terresa asked the question, 'what paralysed you today?'

I see he hasn't left a comment here. I thought you might like to know that your Rumi quotes travel further afield, in case you didn't already know.

I love the blogosphere in part for the way people interconnect and link up in the strangest ways.

Like Lorenzo I am paralysed, if that
is the right word, by these wonderful words. You are so generous to share Rumi with us.

Thanks, Ruth.

* said...

One small act of kindness can be as a mountain moving, lifting up and over elsewhere and away. Your words have done this for me today.

Thank you, Ruth.