A Voice through the Door

Sometimes you hear a voice through the door

calling you, as fish out of water

hear the waves, or a hunting falcon

hears the drum's Come back. Come back.

This turning toward what you deeply love

saves you. Read the book of your life,

which has been given you.

A voice comes to your soul saying,

Lift your foot. Cross over.

Move into emptiness

of question and answer and question.

Listening (2)

Lisa Trehot, by Auguste Renoir

Listen, and feel the beauty of your separation,

the unsayable absence.

There is a moon inside every human being.

Learn to be companions with it.

Give more of your life to this listening.

As brightness is to time,

so you are to the one who talks

to the deep ear in your chest.

I should sell my tongue and buy a thousand ears

when that one steps near and begins to speak.

Listening (1)

What is the deep listening?

Sama is a greeting from the secret ones

inside the heart, a letter.

The branches of your intelligence

grow new leaves in the wind of this listening.

The body reaches a peace.

Rooster sound comes,

reminding you of your love for dawn.

The reed flute and the singer's lips.

The knack of how spirit breathes into us

becomes as simple and ordinary

as eating and drinking.

The dead rise with the pleasure of listening.

If someone cannot hear a trumpet melody,

sprinkle dirt on him and declare him dead.

Your Face

You may be planning departure,

as a human soul leaves the world

taking almost all its sweetness with it.

You saddle your horse. You must be going.

Remember that you have friends here

as faithful as the grass and the sky.

Have I failed you? Possibly you are angry.

But remember our nights of conversation,

the well work, yellow roses by the ocean,

the longing, the archangel Gabriel

saying, So be it.

Shams Tabriz, your face

is what every religion tries to remember.

Jars of Springwater

Jars of springwater are not enough anymore.

Take us down to the river.

The face of peace, the sun itself.

No more the slippery, cloudlike moon.

Give us one clear morning after another,

and the one whose work remains unfinished,

who is our work as we diminish,

idle, though occupied, empty, and open.

A General Introductory Lecture

A nightingale flies nearer the roses.

A girl blushes. Pomegranates ripen.

Hallaj will be executed.

A man walks a mountain path, solitary

and full of prayer.

Narcissus at the edge, creekwater washing

tree roots. God is giving

a general introductory lecture.

We hear and read it everywhere,

in the field, through the branches.

We will never finish studying.

Neither of us has a penny,

yet we are walking the jeweler's bazaar

seriously considering making a purchase.

Or shall I say this with other metaphors?

A barn crowded with souls.

Quietness served around a table.

Two people talk along a road

that's paved with words.

The Sweet Taste of Grief

I saw grief drinking a cup of sorrow

and called out, 

It tastes sweet, does it not?

You have caught me, grief answered,

and you have ruined my business.

How can I sell sorrow, 

when you know it's a blessing?