Friday, August 05, 2005

Morning Poetry

Two of my favorites from Rumi

...the way of love is not a subtle argument.
The door there is devastation.
Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom
How do they learn it?
They fall, and falling, they're given wings.


A moment of happiness,
you and I sitting on the verandah,
apparently two, but one in soul, you and I.
We feel the flowing water of life here,
you and I, with the garden's beauty
and the birds singing.
The stars will be watching us,
and we will show them
what it is to be a thin crescent moon.
You and I unselfed, will be together,
indifferent to idle speculation, you and I.
The parrots of heaven will be cracking sugar
as we laugh together, you and I.
In one form upon this earth,
and in another form in a timeless sweet land.


About Rumi
"Rumi was born on the Eastern shores of the Persian Empire in 1207 (in the city of Balkh in what is now Afghanistan), and finally settled in the town of Konya, in what is now Turkey. His life story reads like a fairy tale. A charming noble man, a genius theologian, a brilliant sober scholar, meets a wandering and wild "holy man" by the name of Shams, and almost overnight is transformed. It seems that the universe brought these two opposing characters together to remind us for eternity that it is never what you expect when it comes to personal transformation. It is impossible to know where your next inspiration may come from, or who will become the conduit for your transformation. For Rumi the life of mystics is a "gathering of lovers, where there is no high or low, smart or ignorant, no proper schooling required." Rumi and his spiritual friend Shams left an undying legacy of the way-of-the-heart triumphing over pure, cold logic." --Shahram Shiva