A Night Full of Talking

Landscape, by Fred Williams Lysterfield

A night full of talking that hurts,

my worst held-back secrets. Everything

has to do with loving and not loving.

This night will pass.

Then we have work to do.

The Sunrise Ruby

In the early morning hour,

just before dawn, lover and beloved awake

and take a drink of water.

She asks, Do you love me or yourself more?

Really, tell me the absolute truth.

He says, There is nothing left of me.

I am like a ruby held up to the sunrise.

Is it still a stone, or a world

made of redness? It has no resistance

to sunlight. The ruby and the sunrise are one.

Be courageous and discipline yourself.

Work. Keep digging your well.

Don't think about getting off from work.

Submit to a daily practice.

Your loyalty to that is a ring on the door.

Keep knocking, and the joy inside

will eventually open a window

and look out to see who's there.

Hallaj

Into the Woods, Summer, by Howard Hodgkin

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Hallaj said what he said and went to the origin

through the hole in the scaffold.

I cut a cap's worth of cloth from his robe,

and it swamped over me from head to foot.

Years ago, I broke a bunch of roses

from the top of his wall. A thorn from that

is still in my palm, working deeper.

A person comes to him naked. It's cold.

There's a fur coat floating in the river.

Jump in and get it, he says.

You dive in. You reach for the coat.

It reaches for you.

It's a live bear that has fallen in upstream,

drifting with the current.

How long does it take? Hallaj yells from the bank.

Don't wait, you answer. This coat

has decided to wear me home.

A little part of a story, a hint.

Do you need long sermons on Hallaj?

The Old Woman and the Falcon

Textile sample, designer unknown, Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

When you give a noble falcon

to a fussy old woman who knows nothing of falconry,

she will clip its wings short, for its own good.

Young man, where has your mother been

that your toenails have gotten this long?

Those talons are how the falcon hunts its food.

The old woman fixes him tutmaj, dumpling stew.

He won't touch it. Too good to eat my tutmaj, huh?

She ladles some broth and holds it to his beak.

Her anger builds, and suddenly she pours

the ladle of hot soup over his head.

Tears come from those beautiful falcon eyes.

He remembers his former life, the king's love-whistle,

the great circling over the ocean,

the distances that condense so quickly to a point.

Falcon tears are food for a true human being,

perfume for Gabriel.

Your soul is the king's falcon,

who says, This old woman's rage

does not touch my glory or my discipline.

Love Moves Away

Pale sunlight,

pale the wall.

Love moves away.

The light changes.

I need more grace

than I thought.

Let the Beauty We Love

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty

and frightened. Don't open the door to the study

and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.

There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

Bu'l-Hasan and the Snow

After Bestami died, it happened as he said

that Bu'l-Hasan became the sheikh for his community.

Every day Bu'l-Hasan would go to Bestami's tomb

to receive instruction. He had been told to do this

in a dream by Bestami himself.

Every dawn he goes and stands

facing the tomb until midmorning.

Either the spirit of Bestami comes and talks to him

or in silence the questions he has are answered.

One day a deep snow has fallen overnight.

The graves are indistinguishable.

Bu'l-Hasan feels lost.

Then he hears his sheikh's voice.

The world is made of snow.

It falls and melts and falls again.

Do not be concerned with the snow.

Come toward the sound of my voice.

Move always in this direction.

From that day Bu'l-Hasan began to experience

the enlightened state

he had only heard and read about before.