No Better Love

Andromeda, Eugene Delacroix

No better love than love with no object.

No more satisfying work

than work with no purpose.

If you could give up tricks and cleverness,

that would be the cleverist trick.

Hunt Music

Musk and amber remind us

of the air at sunrise,

when any small motion feels part

of some elaborate making.

The body's harp gets handed

to the soul to play.

The strings: rage, jealousy,

all the wantings mix their energy-music.

Who tuned this instrument?

Where wind is a string

and also Shams' eyes

reflecting a gazelle as it turns

to stalk the hunting lioness.

Something Opens Our Wings

Something opens our wings. Something

makes boredom and hurt disappear.

Someone fills the cup in front of us.

We taste only sacredness.

The Generations I Praise

Yesterday the beauty of early dawn

came over me, and I wondered

who my heart would reach toward.

Then this morning again

and you. Who am I?

Wind and fire and watery ground

move me mightily because they are pregnant

with God. These are the early morning 

generations I praise.

That Quick

A lover looks at creekwater

and wants to be that quick to fall,

to kneel all the way down in full prostration.

A lover wants to die of his love

like a man with dropsy who knows

that water will kill him, but he cannot deny

his thirst. A lover loves death,

which is God's way of helping us evolve

from mineral to vegetable to animal,

each onward form incorporating the others.

The animal becomes Adam,

and the next stage will take us beyond

what we can imagine into the mystery

of We are all returning.

Do not fear death. Spill your jug into the river.

Your attributes will disappear,

but the essence moves on.

Your shame and fear are like felt layers

covering coldness. Throw them off

and rush naked into the joy of death.

The Fish Way

The ocean way is the fish way

of the watersouls of fish who die becoming the sea.

Fish do not wait patiently for water.

In this world full of shape,

there you are with no form.

You have made a universe

from a drop of my blood.

Now I am confused.

I cannot tell world from drop.

My mouth and this wine glass are one lip.

I am Nobody, the fool shepherd.

Where is my flock? What shepherd?

When I talk of you, there are no words.

Where could I put you, who will not fit

in the secret world, or in this one?

All I know of spirit is this love.

Do not call me a believer.

Infidel is better.

Put This Design in Your Carpet (2)

 Carpet from Konya, the place where Rumi died,

in present day Turkey. Rumi celebrants call the day Rumi died
his "Wedding Day," when the veil was lifted
and he joined the Beloved.
Rumi's Wedding Day is celebrated around the world
on the anniversary of his death, December 17.

Any movement or sound is a profession of faith,

as the millstone grinding is explaining

how it believes in the river.

No metaphor can explain this,

but I cannot stop pointing to the beauty.

Every moment and place says,

Put this design in your carpet.

I want to be in such a passionate adoration

that my tent gets pitched against the sky.

Let the beloved come

and sit like a guard dog

in front of the tent.

When the ocean surges, 

don't let me just hear it.

Let is splash inside my chest.

My notes written during a 2007 Rumi reading by Coleman Barks; 

click on the image if you want to read more easily.
Please click & go to the link about the Rumi reading
to read more about what it's like to hear Barks read,
and dance in spirit while dervishes dance.