On the Day I Die

On the day I die,

when I am being carried toward the grave,

don't weep. Don't say, He's gone. He's gone.

Death has nothing to do with going away.

The sun sets and the moon sets,

but they're not gone.

Death is a coming together.

The tomb looks like a prison,

but it's really release into union.

The human seed goes down into the ground

like a bucket into the well where Joseph is.

It grows and comes up

full of some unimagined beauty.

Your mouth closes here

and immediately opens

with a shout of joy there.

The Breeze at Dawn

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill

where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

Don't go back to sleep.

The Cat and the Meat (2)

If you have a body, where is the spirit?

If you are spirit, what is the body?

This is not our problem to worry about.

Both are both. Corn is corn grain

and cornstalk. The divine butcher

cuts us a piece from the thigh

and a piece from the neck.

Invisible, visible, the world

does not work without both.

If you throw dust at someone's head,

nothing will happen.

If you throw water, nothing.

But combine them into a lump.

That marriage of water and earth

cracks open the head,

and afterward, there are other marriages.

The Cat and the Meat (1)

There was once a sneering wife

who ate all her husband brought home

and lied about it.

One day it was some lamb for a guest

who was to come. He had worked two hundred days

in order to buy that meat.

When he was away, his wife cooked a kabob

and at it all, with wine.

The husband returns with his guest.

The cat has eaten the meat, she says.

Buy more, if you have any money left.

He asks a servant to bring the scales

and the cat. The cat weighs three pounds.

The meat was three pounds, one ounce.

If this is the cat, where is the meat?

If this is the meat, where is the cat?

Start looking for one or the other.

Inward Sky (2)

Fokussiertes Glück, by Gerhard Mantz

Prophets come and go for one reason, to say,

Human beings, you have a great value

inside your form, a seed. Be led

by the rose inside the rose.

Doubt is part of existence.

There is no proof of the soul.

So I ask in this talking with soul,

this prayer, this kindness, When the soul

leaves my body, where will these poems be?

Answer: It was like that in the beginning,

so what are you worrying about?

Love, finish this ghazal, please.

You know which words will last.

Shams, say the meaning of the names,

the inward sky that you are.

Inward Sky (1)

Gerhard Mantz, Die Geduld Gottes

You are the soul, the universe,

and what animates the universe.

I live and work inside you. I speak with

what was found in the ruins of a former self.

Concealed in your garden, I have become a ladder

propped against and leading up into the sky-dome.

Why cry for what is closer than voice?

I ask to hear the wisdom that uncovers the soul.

These four come with their answers.

Fire: You have a saucepan to cook what's raw.

Wear it like a saddle on your back.

Water: You have a spring inside.

Soak the earth.

Jupiter in the goodluck aspect: Show your talent,

Do something outside of time and space.

Jupiter in its bad mood: Be consumed with jealousy.

What else is there?

More Range

 Gerhard Mantz, Rachsüchtiger Ansturm

We are friends with the one who kills us,

who gives us to the ocean waves.

We love this death. Only ignorance says,

Put it off a while, day after tomorrow.

Do not avoid the knife.

This friend only seems fierce,

bringing your soul more range,

perching your falcon on a cliff of the wind.

Jesus on his cross, Hallaj on his.

Those absurd executions hold a secret.

Cautious cynics claim they know

what they are doing every minute, and why.

Submit to love without thinking,

as the sun rose this morning

recklessly extinguishing

our star-candle minds.