A Door

I have lived on the lip

of insanity, wanting to know reasons,

knocking on a door. It opens.

I've been knocking from the inside.

Love Dogs

Turquoise Jar, by Farhad Moshiri 

One night a man was crying Allah. Allah.

His lips grew sweet with the praising,

until a cynic said, So. I have heard you calling out,

but have you ever gotten any response?

The man had no answer for that.

He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep

where he dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls,

in a thick green foliage.

Why did you stop praising? Because

I've never heard anything back.

This longing you express

is the return message.

The grief you cry out from

draws you toward union.

Your pure sadness that wants help

is the secret cup.

Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.

That whining is the connection.

There are love dogs no one knows the names of.

Give your life to be one of them.

Unmarked Boxes

Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round

in another form. The child weaned from mother's milk

now drinks wine and honey mixed.

God's joy moves from unmarked box to unmarked box,

from cell to cell. As rainwater, down into flowerbed.

As roses, up from ground. Now it looks like

a plate of rice and fish, now a cliff

covered with vines, now a horse being saddled.

It hides within these, till one day it cracks them open.

Part of the self leaves the body when we sleep

and changes shape. You might say, Last night

I was a cypress tree, a small bed of tulips,

a field of grapevines. Then the phantasm goes away.

You are back in the room.

I don't want to make anyone fearful.

Hear what's behind what I say.

Tatatumtum tatum tatadum. There is the light gold of wheat

in the sun and the gold of bread made from that wheat.

I have neither. I am only talking about them,

as a town in the desert looks up

at stars on a clear night.

A Lantern

You are so subtle you can slip into my soul,

how would it be if you, for a time,

were living visibly here?

So hidden that you are hidden from hidden things,

you enter me, and my hiddenness

shines like a lantern.

You Solomon, who understands bird-language

and speaks it, what will you say now

through my mouth?

King whose bow no one can draw,

use me for an arrow.

Shams is the way I know God.

Move Within

Keep walking, though there's no place to get to.

Don't try to see through the distances.

That's not for human beings. Move within,

but don't move the way fear makes you move.

Ashes, Wanderers

The Wife of Plutus, by George Frederic Watts

In this battle we do not hold

a shield in front of us.

When we turn in sama,

we do not hear the flute or the tambourine.

Underneath these feet we become

nazar, the guide's glance,

ashes, wanderers,

as the moon diminishes,

until it is gone for a few days,

to come back changed.

Send for the planet Venus to play here.

Flute, drum, and strings are not enough.

No. Who but these musicians

could stand the beat that melts the sun?

I Have Such a Teacher

Last night my teacher taught me the lesson of poverty,

having nothing and wanting nothing.

I am a naked man standing inside a mine of rubies,

clothed in red silk.

I absorb the shining and now I see the ocean,

billions of simultaneous motions moving in me.

A circle of lovely, quiet people

becomes the ring on my finger.

Then wind, and the thunder of rain on the way.

I have such a teacher.