Deliberation (1)

Orthodox priest, by Bennett Hart

A friend remarks to the prophet, Why is it

I always make bad business deals?

It's like a spell. I become distracted

by business talk and get led into wrong decisions.

Muhammad replies, Stipulate with every transaction

that you need three days to make sure.

Deliberation is one of the qualities of God.

Throw a dog a bit of something.

He sniffs to see if he wants it.

Be that careful. Sniff with your wisdom-nose.

Get clear. Then decide.

The universe came into being gradually

over six days. God could have just commanded: BE.

Little by little a person reaches forty and fifty

and sixty and feels more complete.

God could have thrown full-blown prophets

flying through the cosmos in an instant.

Jesus said one word, and a dead man sat up,

but creation usually unfolds like calm breakers.

Who Makes These Changes?

Who makes these changes?

I shoot an arrow right.

It lands left.

I ride after a deer

and find myself chased by a hog.

I plot to get what I want

and end up in prison.

I dig pits to trap others

and fall in.

I should be suspicious

of what I want.

Meadowsounds

We have come again to that knee of seacoast

no ocean can reach.

Tie together all human intellects.

They will not stretch to here.

The sky bears its neck so beautifully,

but gets no kiss. Only a taste.

This is the food that everyone wants,

wandering in the wilderness.

Please give us your manna and quail.

We are here again with the beloved. This air,

a shout. These meadowsounds, an astonishing myth.

We have come into the presence of the one

who was never apart from us. When someone chews

sugarcane, he is wanting this sweetness.

Inside this globe the soul roars like thunder.

And now silence, my strict tutor.

I will not try to talk about Shams.

Language cannot touch that presence.

Too Happy, You Could Not Sleep Last Night

I am the slave who frees the master.

I teach the teacher.

I am essence born freshly every day.

I built the ancient civilizations.

I brush medicine on fading eyesight.

I relight intelligence.

In grief, I am pitchblack darkness.

On a feast day, the children's excitement.

I am the ground who fills the sky's brain

with fiery lightning-love, air, wind.

You could not sleep last night,

too happy with how I was remembering you.

No one is to blame that sometimes

I am a scandal, or obviously unfair.

The surface is rusting over.

I had better go into silence.

I am breathing too close

to this mirror's face.

Sheba's Hesitation

Imagine that you are Sheba trying to decide

whether or not to go to Solomon.

You are haggling about how much to pay

for shoeing a donkey, when you could be seated

with one who is always in union with God,

who carries a beautiful garden inside himself.

You could be moving in a great circuit

without wings, nourished without eating,

sovereign without a throne.

No longer subject to fortune,

you could be luck itself,

if you would rise from sleep,

leave the market-arguing, and learn

that your own essence is your wealth. 

Different Loads

Siesta, by Vincent van Gogh

Do not feed both sides of yourself equally.

The spirit and the body carry different loads

and require different attentions.

Too often we put saddlebags on Jesus,

and let the donkey run loose in the pasture.

Do not make the body do what the spirit does best,

and don't put a big load on the spirit

that the body could carry easily.

Sublime Generosity (2)

He said, You are the sheikh, the guide.

But I am not a teacher. I have no power.

He said, You already have wings.

I cannot give you wings.

But I wanted his wings.

I felt like some flightless chicken.

Then new events said to me,

Don't move. A sublime generosity

is coming toward you.

And old love said, Stay with me.

I said, I will.

You are the fountain of the sun's light.

I am a willow shadow on the ground.

You make my raggedness silky.