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firecat(translated by Coleman Barks)
There was a dawn I remember
when my soul heard something
from your soul. I drank water
from your spring and felt
the current take me.
*
A mountain keeps an echo deep inside itself.
That's how I hold your voice.
*
What can I say to someone so curled up with wanting,
so constricted in his love?
Break your pitcher against a rock.
We don't need any longer
to haul pieces of the ocean around.
*
There is a secret medicine
given only to those who hurt so hard
they can't hope.
The hopers would feel slighted if they knew.
*
Don't hand me another glass of wine.
Pour it in my mouth.
I've lost the way to my mouth.
*
A candle is made to become entirely flame.
In that annihilating moment
it has no shadow.
It is nothing but a tongue of light
describing a refuge.
*
Dear soul, if you were not friends
with the vast nothing inside,
why would you always be casting your net
into it, and waiting so patiently?
*
Stop the words now.
Open the window in the center of your chest,
and let the spirits fly in and out.
*
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.
There was a dawn I remember
when my soul heard something
from your soul. I drank water
from your spring and felt
the current take me.
*
A mountain keeps an echo deep inside itself.
That's how I hold your voice.
*
What can I say to someone so curled up with wanting,
so constricted in his love?
Break your pitcher against a rock.
We don't need any longer
to haul pieces of the ocean around.
*
There is a secret medicine
given only to those who hurt so hard
they can't hope.
The hopers would feel slighted if they knew.
*
Don't hand me another glass of wine.
Pour it in my mouth.
I've lost the way to my mouth.
*
A candle is made to become entirely flame.
In that annihilating moment
it has no shadow.
It is nothing but a tongue of light
describing a refuge.
*
Dear soul, if you were not friends
with the vast nothing inside,
why would you always be casting your net
into it, and waiting so patiently?
*
Stop the words now.
Open the window in the center of your chest,
and let the spirits fly in and out.
*
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.
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no subject
Date: 26 Sep 2002 03:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 26 Sep 2002 05:12 am (UTC)Jo Walton bluejo@vif.com
I feel like I want to append a PGP sig or maybe a DNA test to prove I am not actually "anonymous".
no subject
Date: 26 Sep 2002 11:09 am (UTC)Rumi is a 13th Century Persian Sufi mystic, and the translation is by Coleman Barks, a modern scholar/poet. Most/all of the bits I quoted are from The Essential Rumi.
Stunning, innit?
no subject
Date: 26 Sep 2002 02:17 pm (UTC)[makes note of book]
I was just thinking today how much I'm looking forward to meeting you :-)
Vron
no subject
Date: 26 Sep 2002 02:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 27 Sep 2002 12:52 pm (UTC)Sandra & I are planning to book our flights tomorrow.