Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Lightning

Lovers Walking in the Snow (Crow and Heron)
Suzuki Harunobu (Japanese, 1725–1770)

This is no ordinary friendship.
I attend your banquet as wine attends.

Like lightning, I am an expert at dying.
Like lightning, this beauty has no language.

It makes no difference
whether I win or lose.

You sit with us in a congregation of the dead,
where one handful of dirt says,
I was once a head of hair.

Another, I was a backbone.
You say nothing.

Love comes in, I can deliver you
from yourself in this moment.

Now lover and beloved grow quiet.
My mouth is burning with sweetness.

6 comments:

Jane Lancaster said...

I love this...it fits for me today...wrote a piece about lightening yesterday....gorgeous.

who said...

I would have to agree with Jane. Ruthi not only has Rumi firing on all cylinders, but also his violin very finely tuned and bow dialed in.

And that Jalal al-Din was known to sometimes skip around irreverently never letting his thought by bound, kept within.

But I feel the timing, has a lot to do with Ruthi dance step with him.

steven said...

i attend your banquet as wine attends. that is rumi in my life. steven

SarahA said...

I am liking the intimacy of such, without being 'in your face'. Beautifully done.

Louise Gallagher said...

I like what Steven said -- about how Rumi appears in life, like wine attending a banquet.

Fluid. Nectar of the gods. Rich and resplendent. Flowing.

Unknown said...

The Lover covers the face of the Beloved,
like a cloud of shining, flashing darkness,
like the shape of a hand, stretched out to form a shade of rest.

Wherever the beloved is, there also, is the lover.
Like thunder and lightning they are inseparable.
They join Heaven and Earth.

The beloved in his song are the desire of my heart.
Like freshly baked corn bread,
sweet, fragrant manna.

I ate my corn with my cornbread.
I drank my milk with my wine.

I stared at the beloved every night,
as if wrestling with his face to the break of dawn.

Then I looked to the mirror and saw the Face of my beloved.
I glanced at my body,
it was an imprint of kindness,
a wing of healing.
I was a dove.


Like a branch thickset with fruit,
like a gazelle's footprints in the snow,
like a table fully prepared,
like a window open to the east,
like a fresh breath of morning dew,
so am I a lover.

My soul waits eagerly for chaos,
the birth of my brothers,
and my own birth.

All for the first cry and tears of life.

David's lyre sing true the rainbow chord,
and Death is swallowed up forever.