Sufi Poetry

"You are not here to be sad. You are not here to blame. You are not here to worry. Experiencing infinity within this finite body, and living timelessness within time, this is what you are here for."
~Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

My heart has become able
To take on all forms.
It is a pasture for gazelles,
For monks an abbey.

It is a temple for idols
And for whoever circumambulates it, the Kaaba.
It is the tablets of the Torah
And also the leaves of the Koran.

I believe in the religion
Of Love
Whatever direction its caravans may take,
For love is my religion and my faith.

~Muhyiddin bin Arabi

Salutations to the day of friendship’s delight
To the pupils that have seen the light.
Greeting the heart of the righteous, bright,
To the candle of the sanctuary of the right.
~Hafez Shirazi

i was dervish spinning
i held my hand out in front of my eyes to focus on to prevent the dizzy

it didn't work

Your grief for what you’ve lost lifts a mirror
up to where you are bravely working.
Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,
here’s the joyful face you’ve been wanting to see.
Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you would be paralysed.
Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and
expanding,
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as birdwings.
~Rumi

A Sufi’s Prayer
I am a tumbleweed in the night desert
Rolling on sand dunes, aimlessly through life.
The wind sings through my hollow body
The song of the nomadic Sufi.
I stagger from side to side
Laughing at myself, drunk with love.
Oh, you the prairie coyote
Take me on the wing of your howl
To the cold midnight moon.
Lay me there to rest,
Free from the boiling blood on this Earth.
Let my tears pour down from the sky
And drench the fire of revenge in Man’s heart.
Or
You may devour me for nourishment
But
Make a flowerbed on my bones
For the roses and jasmines,
Or
Better yet, make my remains be

The food for the dandelions:
Wishing well,
To all life on Earth…

------
Inspired by the events of September 11, 2001, Behzad
--

Perhaps they are not stars,
but rather openings in heaven
where the love of our lost ones
pours through and shines
down upon us to let us know
That they are happy.

Inuit Proverb

every day brings a new challenge

every challenge brings a new opportunity

every opportunity brings the hope of elevation

every elevation is joy unbound

let it be

For ever we come, for ever we go;
For ever, day and night, we are on the move.
Whence we come, thither we go,
For ever in the round of birth and death,
From nothingness to nothingness.
But sure, a mystery here abides,
A Something is there for us to know.
(It cannot all be meaningless).
~Lalla

I have refused to live
locked in the orderly house of
reasons and proofs.
The world I live in and believe in
is wider than that. And anyway,
what’s wrong with Maybe?

You wouldn’t believe what once or
twice I have seen. I’ll just
tell you this:
only if there are angels in your head will you
ever, possibly, see one.


~Mary Oliver

All
the craziness,

All the empty plots,

All the ghosts and fears,
All the grudges and sorrows have

Now

Passed.
I must have inhaled

A strange

Feather
That finally
Fell
Out.
~Hafiz

If you want the moon,
do not hide from the night.
If you want a rose,
do not run from the thorns.
If you want love,
do not run from yourself.

Rumi

It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes.
How soles of feet know
Where they're supposed to be.
I've been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things,
how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?

Pat Schneider

Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
You're covered with a thick cloud.
Slide out the side. Die,
and be quiet. Quiteness is the surest sign
that you've died.
Your old life was a frantic running
from silence.

The speechless full moon
comes out now.


By: Mowlana Jelaluddin Balkhi Rumi