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.

Birds Nesting Near the Coast

Soul, if you want to learn secrets,

your heart must forget about shame

and dignity.

You are God's lover,

yet you worry what people are saying.

The rope belt the early Christians wore

to show who they were, throw it away.

Inside you are sweet beyond telling,

and the cathedral there,

so deeply tall.

Evening now, more your desire

than a woman's hair.

And not knowledge,

walk with those innocent of that,

faces inside fire, birds nesting

near the coast, earning their beauty,

servants to the ocean. There is a sun

within every person, the you

we call companion.

Undressing

Learn the alchemy true human beings know.

The moment you accept what troubles

you've been given, the door will open.

Welcome difficulty, as a familiar comrade.

Joke with torment brought by the Friend.

Sorrows are the rags of old clothes

and jackets that serve to cover,

and then are taken off.

That undressing,

and the naked body underneath,

is the sweetness that comes after grief.

He Is a Letter

Someone who goes with half a loaf of bread

to a small place that fits like a nest around him,

someone who wants no more,

who is not himself longed for

by anyone else.

He is a letter to everyone. You open it.

It says, Live.

Judge a Moth by the Beauty of Its Candle

You are the king's son.

Why do you close yourself up?

Become a lover.

Don't aspire to be a general

or a minister of state.

One is a boredom for you,

the other a disgrace.

You have been a picture on a bathhouse wall

long enough. No one recognizes you here, do they?

God's lion disguised as a human being.

I saw that and put down the book

I was studying, Hariri's Maqamat.

There is no early and late for us.

The only way to measure a lover

is by the grandeur of the beloved.

Judge a moth by the beauty of its candle.

Shams is invisible because he is inside sight.

He is the intelligent essence

of what is everywhere at once, seeing.

The Lord of All the East

Strike, Andy Heatwole

Slave, be aware that the Lord

of all the East is here.

A flickering stormcloud

shows his lightnings to you.

Your words are guesswork.

He speaks from experience.

There is a huge difference.

I Am Not

I am not the centuries-ago Muhammed.

I listen inside this day

like a fresh-fired Phoenix,

not some pigeon looking for seed.

There is a king for whom other kings

are stable boys. Some sip Hallaj's wine.

I drink his truth by the jar, by the barrel.

Qibla for the soul, kaaba for the heart.

I am the constant sky,

not a Friday mosque's ceiling dome.

Clean mirror, no rust.

I am the burning core of Mount Sinai,

not a mind full of hatred.

I taste a wine not pressed from grapes.

The one everyone calls to

when they are in sudden mortal danger,

I am That.

Gabriel could sit here beside me,

if he became God.