If anyone asks you
How the perfect satisfaction
Of all our sexual wanting
Will look, lift your face
and say,
Like this.
When someone mentions the gracefulness
Of the nightsky, climb up the roof
And dance and say,
Like this?
If anyone wants to know what "spirit" is,
Or what "God's fragrance" means,
Lean your head towards him or her.
Keep your face there close.
Like this.
When someone quotes the old poetic image
About clouds gradually uncovering the moon,
Slowly loosen knot by knot the strings
Of your robe.
Like this?
If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead,
Don't try to explain the miracle.
Kiss me on the lips.
Like this.
When someone asks what it means
To "die for love," point:
Here.
If someone asks how tall I am, frown
And measure with your fingers the space
Between the creases on your forehead.
This tall.
The soul sometimes leaves the body, then returns.
When someone doesn't believe that,
Walk back into my house.
LIKE THIS.
When Lovers moan,
They're telling our story.
Like this.
I am a sky where spirits live.
Stare into this deepening blue,
While the breeze says a secret.
Like this.
When someone asks what there is to do,
Light the candle in his hand.
Like this.
How did Joseph's scent come to Jacob?
Huuuu.
How did Jacob's Sight return?
Huuuu.
A little wind cleans the eyes.
Like this.
When Shams comes back from Tbriz,
He'll put just his head around the edge
Of the door to surprise us.
Like this.
I want to see you.
Know your voice.
Recognize you when you
first come 'round the corner.
Sense your scent when I come
into a room you've just left.
Know the lift of your heel,
the glide of your foot.
Become familiar with the way
you purse your lips
then let them part,
just the slightest bit,
when I lean in to your space
and kiss you.
I want to know the joy
of how you whisper
"more”
I have five things to say,
five fingers to give into your grace.
First, when I was apart from you,
this world did not exist, nor any other.
Second, whatever I was looking for was always you.
Third, why did I ever learn to count to three?
Fourth, my cornfield is burning!
Fifth, this finger stands for Rabia, and this is for someone else.
Is there a difference?
Are these words or tears? Is weeping speech?
What shall I do, my love?
So the lover speaks, and everyone around
begins to cry with him, laughing crazily, moaning in the spreading union
of lover and beloved.
This is the true religion. All others are thrown-away bandages beside it.
This is the sema of slavery and mastery dancing together. This is not-being.
I know these dancers.
Day and night I sing their songs in this phenomenal cage.
My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that, and I intend to end up there.
This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet.
Only from the heart can you touch the sky.
I want that love that moved the mountains.
I want that love that split the ocean.
I want that love that made the winds tremble.
I want that love that roared like thunder.
I want that love that will raise the dead.
I want that love that lifts us to ecstasy.
I want that love that is the silence of eternity.
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
I choose to love you in silence...
For in silence I find no rejection.
I choose to love you in loneliness...
For in loneliness no one own you but me.
I choose to adore you from a distance...
For distance will shield me from pain,
I choose to kiss you in the wind...
For the wind is gentler than my lips.
I choose to hold you in my dreams...
For in my dreams, you have no end.
Be empty of worrying.
Think of who created thought!
Why do you stay in prison
When the door is so wide open?
Your breath touched my soul and I saw beyond all limits.
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.