On the World

On the World

 from Discourses of Rumi, translation by Fatemeh Keshavarz

The world is a mountain
Whatever you say, good or bad, it will echo it back to you
Don't say I sang nicely and mountain echoed an ugly voice…
That is not possible The human intellect is a place where hesitation and uncertainty take root
There is no way to overcome this hesitation…except by falling in love
To reach the sea and be happy with a jug water is a waste
The sea that has pearls…
And a hundred thousand other precious things.




Found here on the On Being website. Go listen to it read in English and Persian!

A Potted Plant

A Potted Plant

from The Subject Tonight is Love by Hafiz, translation by Daniel Ladinsky

I pull a sun from my coin purse each day.

And at night I let my pet the moon

Run freely into the sky meadow.

If I whistled,

She would turn her head and look at me.

If I then waved my arms,

She would come back wagging a marvelous tail

Of stars.

There are always a few men like me

In this world

Who are house-sitting for God.

We share His royal duties:

I water each day a favorite potted plant

Of His--

This earth.

Ask the Friend for love.

Ask Him again.

For I have learned that every heart will get

What it prays for

Most.



found here on the Peaceful Rivers website

The Guest House

 by Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

 

 

Found here on All Poetry dot com

Where Everything is Music

Where Everything Is Music

by Rumi, translation by Coleman Barks

 

 Don't worry about saving these songs!
 And if one of our instruments breaks,
 it doesn't matter.

 We have fallen into the place
 where everything is music.

 The strumming and the flute notes
 rise into the atmosphere,
 and even if the whole world's harp
 should burn up, there will still be
 hidden instruments playing.

 So the candle flickers and goes out.
 We have a piece of flint, and a spark.

 This singing art is sea foam.
 The graceful movements come from a pearl
 somewhere on the ocean floor.

 Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge
 of driftwood along the beach, wanting!

 They derive
 from a slow and powerful root
 that we can't see.

 Stop the words now.
 Open the window in the center of your chest,
 and let the spirits fly in and out. 

Found here on The Wondering Minstrels blog 

A Great Need

A Great Need

by Hafiz, translation by Daniel Ladinsky

Out
Of a great need
We are all holding hands
And climbing.
Not loving is a letting go.
Listen,
The terrain around here
Is
Far too
Dangerous
For
That.



Found here on Astro Dream Advisor dot com

The Words Under the Words

by Naomi Shihab Nye

for Sitti Khadra, north of Jerusalem

My grandmother’s hands recognize grapes,   
the damp shine of a goat’s new skin.   
When I was sick they followed me,
I woke from the long fever to find them   
covering my head like cool prayers.

My grandmother’s days are made of bread,   
a round pat-pat and the slow baking.
She waits by the oven watching a strange car   
circle the streets. Maybe it holds her son,   
lost to America. More often, tourists,   
who kneel and weep at mysterious shrines.   
She knows how often mail arrives,
how rarely there is a letter.
When one comes, she announces it, a miracle,   
listening to it read again and again
in the dim evening light.

My grandmother’s voice says nothing can surprise her.
Take her the shotgun wound and the crippled baby.   
She knows the spaces we travel through,   
the messages we cannot send—our voices are short   
and would get lost on the journey.
Farewell to the husband’s coat,
the ones she has loved and nourished,
who fly from her like seeds into a deep sky.   
They will plant themselves. We will all die.

My grandmother’s eyes say Allah is everywhere, even in death.   
When she talks of the orchard and the new olive press,   
when she tells the stories of Joha and his foolish wisdoms,   
He is her first thought, what she really thinks of is His name.
“Answer, if you hear the words under the words—
otherwise it is just a world with a lot of rough edges,   
difficult to get through, and our pockets full of stones.”

Found here on Poets dot org