A Collection of Inspiring Poetry

Affirming Faith in Mind

Live in bondage to your thoughts,
and you will be confused, unclear.
This heavy burden weighs you down.

When you are no longer asleep,
all dreams will vanish by themselves.

When you assert that things are real
you miss their true reality.
But to assert that things are void
also misses their reality.
The more you talk and think on this
the further from the truth you’ll be.

Do not go searching for truth,
Just let those fond opinions go.
Just let go of clinging mind,
and all things are just as they are.

With single mind one with the Way,
all ego-centered strivings cease;
doubts and confusion disappear,
and so true faith pervades our lives.

If mind does not discriminate,
all things are as they are, as One.

Not only here, not only there -
Truth is right before your very eyes.

The wise in all times and places
awaken to this primal truth.

The Way is perfect like vast space,
where there is no lack and no excess.
Our choice to choose and reject
prevents our seeing this simple truth.

When preferences are cast aside,
the Way stands clear and undisguised.

To seek Great Mind with thinking mind
is certainly a grave mistake.
From small mind come rest and unrest,
but mind awakened transcends both.

All is self revealing, void and clear,
without exerting power of mind.

The Great Way is not difficult
for those who do not pick and choose.

If you would walk the highest Way,
do not reject the sense domain.
for as it is, it is whole and complete,
This sense world is enlightenment.

Distinctions such as large and small
have relevance for you no more.
The largest is the smallest too -
Here limitations have no place.
What is is not, what is not is -
One thing is all, all things are one.
Know this and all is whole and complete.

When faith and mind are not separate,
and not separate are mind and faith,
this is beyond all words, all thought.
For here, there is no yesterday,
no tomorrow,
no today.

- Seng Ts’an, Third Zen Patriarch

* * *

The Genjo Koan

To study the Buddha way is to study the self.
To study the self is to forget the self.
To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things.
When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind, as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away.
No trace of realization remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly.

- Dogen

* * *

Laughing at the Word “Two”

Only that Illuminated One
who keeps seducing the formless into form
had the charm to win my heart.

Only a Perfect One
who is always laughing at the word
“Two”
can make you know
of love.

- Hafiz

* * *

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clear blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

- Mary Oliver

* * *

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain! I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it’s not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

- Oriah Mountain Dreamer

* * *

I
Have
Learned
So much from God
That I can no longer
Call
Myself

A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim,
a Buddhist, a Jew.

The Truth has shared so much of Itself
With me

That I can no longer call myself
A man, a woman, an angel,
Or even a pure
Soul.

Love has
Befriended Hafiz so completely
It has turned to ash
And freed
Me

Of every concept and image
my mind has ever known.

-Hafiz

* * *

It Happens All the Time in Heaven

It happens all the time in heaven,
And some day
It will begin to happen
Again on earth,
That men and women who are married,
And men and men who are lovers,
And women and women who give each other Light,
Often will get down on their knees
And while so tenderly
Holding their lover’s hand,
With tears in their eyes,
Will sincerely ask, saying,
“My dear,
How can I be more loving to you;
How can I be more kind?”

- Hafiz

* * *

The Well of Grief

Those who will not slip beneath
the still surface on the well of grief
turning down to its black water
to the place that we can not breathe
will never know
the source from which we drink
the secret water cold and clear
nor find in the darkness
the small gold coins
thrown by those who wished for something else

- David Whyte

* * *

I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall be complete -
The earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who remains jagged and broken.

- Walt Whitman

* * *

The Opening of Eyes

That day I saw beneath dark clouds
The passing light over the water
And I heard the voice of the world speak out
I knew then as I have before
Life is no passing memory of what has been
Nor the remaining pages of a great book
Waiting to be read

It is the opening of eyes long closed
It is the vision of far off things
Seen for the silence they hold
It is the heart after years of secret conversing
Speaking out loud in the clear air

It is Moses in the desert fallen to his knees
Before the lit bush
It is the man throwing away his shoes
As if to enter heaven and finding himself astonished
Opened at last
Fallen in love
With solid ground

- David Whyte

* * *

“It is so clear that it takes long to see.
You must know that the fire you are seeking
Is the fire in your own lantern,
And that your rice has been cooked from the very beginning.”

- Anonymous Chinese poet

* * *

I could not lie anymore so I started calling my dog “God.”
First he looked confused,
then he started smiling,
then he even danced.

I kept at it:
now he doesn’t even bite.

I am wondering if this might work
on people?

- Tukaram

* * *

Lovers of Truth

Lovers of Truth- rise up!
Let us go toward heaven.
We have seen enough of this world,
It’s time to see another…

No, no- don’t stop here.
The gardens may flow with beauty
But let us go to the Gardner Himself.

Let us go,
Bowing to the ocean
like a raging torrent.

Let us go,
Riding upon the foaming waters
of the sea.

Let us travel from this desert of
Hunger and tears
To the feast of the newlyweds.

Let us change our expression
From one of saffron
To the blossoms of the Judas tree.

Our hearts beat fast
We tremble like leaves about to fall.
Let us become the immovable mountain.

There is no escape from pain for one in exile;
There is no escape from dust
For one who lives in a dustbowl.
Let us be like the birds of paradise,
That fly about drinking sweet water.

We are surrounded by the forms
of a formless creator.
Enough with these forms!
Let us go to the Formless One.

Love is our steady guide
On this road full of hardships.
Even if the king offers you his protection,
It is better to travel with the caravan.

We are the rain that falls upon
a leaky roof-
let us miss the holes
and fall smoothly down the spout.

We are crooked bows
With strings that run from our head to toes;
Soon we will be straight
like an arrow in flight.
We run like mice when we see a cat -
yet we are the lion’s roar.
Let us become that Lion.

Let our souls
mirror the love of our Master.
Let us go before Him
With a handful of gifts.

Now let us be silent
So that the Giver of Speech may speak.
Let us be silent
So we can hear Him calling us
Secretly in the night….

We are surrounded by the forms
Of a formless Creator.
Enough with these forms!
Let us go to the Formless One!

- Rumi

* * *

Don’t Surrender Your Loneliness

Don’t surrender your loneliness
So quickly.
Let it cut more deep.

Let it ferment and season you
As few human
Or even divine ingredients can.

Something missing in my heart tonight
Has made my eyes so soft,
My voice
So tender,

My need of God
Absolutely
Clear.

- Hafiz

* * *

A Root In Each Act and Creature

The sun’s eyes are painting fields again.
Its lashes with expert strokes
Are sweeping across the land.

A great palette of light has embraced
This earth.

Hafiz, if just a little clay and water
Mixed in His bowl
Can yield such exquisite scents, sights,
Music – and whirling forms -
What unspeakable wonders must await with
The commencement of unfolding
Of the infinite number of petals
That are the
Soul.

What excitement will renew your body
When we all begin to see
That His heart resides in
Everything?

God has a root in each act and creature
That He draws His mysterious
Divine life from.

His eyes are painting fields again.

The Beloved with His own hands is tending,
Raising like a precious child,
Himself in
You.

- Hafiz

* * *

Mashuq (“Sweetheart”)

Your eye has a melody we want to hear.
God rises from a tuned instrument.

The sun and moon
Will gladly wear robes
And sway as playful children
When the saint directs Light.

Hafiz, could you slip magic into sounds
Then pour them
Into the bruised earth’s ear?

Hafiz, could you whisper the luminous
Close to each wayfarer’s body
And let the whole world know
About the Beloved’s
True nature?

Yes, dear ones, I can.
Listen to one of my favorite words
That the Friend too is always saying to us:
Mashuq, Mashuq.

The chorus in the heart needs to sing.

Love is sovereign and ceaselessly moves
From the tuned clay drum,
Chanting, humming, all day long,
Mashuq, Mashuq to everything.

- Hafiz

* * *

I do not want to step so quickly
over a beautiful line on God’s palm
as I move through the earth’s marketplace today.

I do not want to touch any object in this world
without my eyes testifying to the truth that
everything
is
my
Beloved.

Something has happened to my understanding of existence
that now makes my heart always full of wonder and kindness.

I do not want to step so quickly over this sacred place
on God’s body that is right beneath your own foot
as I dance with precious life
today.

- Hafiz

* * *

I could not lie anymore so I started calling my dog “God.”
First he looked confused,
then he started smiling,
then he even danced.

I kept at it:
now he doesn’t even bite.

I am wondering if this might work
on people?

- Tukaram

* * *

The Guest-House

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.

- Rumi

* * *

Every midwife knows
that not until a mother’s womb softens
from the pain of labor
will a way unfold
and the infant find that opening to be born.

Oh Friend! there is a treasure in your heart.
It is heavy with child.

Listen…
All the awakened ones, like trusted midwives, are saying,

“Welcome this pain.
It opens
the dark passage
of Grace.”

- Rumi

* * *

Dear Soul
when the condition comes
in which we call being a lover
there is no patience
and no repenting

Both become huge absurdities
Seeing regret as a worm
and Love as a dragon

Shame, changeable weather
Love, a quality which wants nothing

For this kind of Lover
love of anything or anyone is unreal
Here, the source
and object are One.

- Rumi

* * *

If one
is afraid of losing anything
they have not looked into the Friend’s eyes;
they have forgotten God’s
promise.

The jewels you get when you meet the Beloved
go on multiplying themselves;
they take root
everywhere.

They keep mating all the time
like spring warmed
creatures.

Burglars
hear watchdogs inside of His
gifts
and run.

- Hafiz

* * *

If the falling of a hoof
ever rings the temple bells,
if a lonely man’s final scream
before he hangs himself
and the nightingale’s perfect lyric
of happiness
all become an equal cause to dance,
then the sun has at last parted
its curtain before you -
God has stopped playing child’s games
with your mind
and dragged you back stage by
the hair,
shown to you the only possible reason
for this bizarre and spectacular
existence.

Go running through the streets
creating divine chaos.
make everyone and yourself and yourself ecstatically mad
for the Friend’s beautiful open arms.
Go running through this world
giving love, giving love.

If the falling of a hoof upon this earth
ever rings the temple bell…

- Hafiz

* * *

Who Says Words With My Mouth?

All day I think about it, then at night I say it.
Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.

This drunkenness began in some other tavern.
When I get back around to that place,
I’ll be completely sober. Meanwhile,
I’m like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary.
The day is coming when I fly off,
but who is it now in my ear, who hears my voice?
Who says words with my mouth?

Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?
I cannot stop asking.
If I could taste one sip of an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.
I didn’t come here of my own accord, and I can’t leave that way.
Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.

This poetry. I never know what I’m going to say.
I don’t plan it.
When I’m outside the saying of it,
I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.

- Rumi

* * *

My Sweet, Crushed Angel

You have not danced so badly, my dear,
trying to hold hands with the beautiful one.

You have waltzed with great style,
my sweet, crushed angel,
to have ever neared God’s heart at all.

Our partner is notoriously difficult to follow,
and even His best musicians are not always easy to hear.

So what if the music is stopped for a while?
So what if the price of admission to the divine is out of reach tonight?
So what, my dear, if you do not have the ante to gamble for real love?

The mind and the body are famous for holding the heart ransom,
but Hafiz knows the Beloved’s eternal habits.

Have patience, for He will not be able to resist your longing for long.

You have not danced so badly, my dear,
trying to kiss the beautiful one.

You have actually waltzed with tremendous style,
oh my sweet,
crushed
angel.

- Hafiz

* * *

Why Go?

Why go into the city or fields
Without first kissing the Friend
Who always stands at your door?

It only takes a second.

Habits are human nature.
Why not create some that will mint gold?

Your arms are violin bows,
Always moving.
I have become very conscious upon whom we all play.
Thus, my eyes have filled
With warm, soft oceans of divine music
Where jeweled dolphins dance,
Then leap into this world.

-Hafiz

* * *

We Have Not Come Here to Take Prisoners

We have not come here to take prisoners,
But to surrender ever more deeply
To freedom and joy.
We have not come into this exquisite world
To hold ourselves hostage from love.

Run my dear,
From anything
That may not strengthen
Your precious budding wings.
Run like hell my dear,
From anyone likely
To put a sharp knife
Into the sacred, tender vision
Of your beautiful heart.
We have a duty to befriend
Those aspects of obedience
That stand outside our house
And shout to our reason
“O please, please,
Come out and play.”
For we have not come here to take prisoners
Or to confine our wondrous spirits.
But to experience ever and ever more deeply
Our divine courage, freedom, and
Light!

-Hafiz

* * *

Kubla Khan

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced;
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And ‘mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves:
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ‘t would win me
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1798

* * *

Chickpea to Cook

A chickpea leaps almost over the rim of the pot
where it’s being boiled.

“Why are you doing this to me?”

The cook knocks him down with the ladle.

“Don’t try to jump out,
You think I’m torturing you.
I’m giving you flavor,
so you can mix with spices and rice
and be the lovely vitality of a human being.
Remember when you drank rain in the garden.
That was for this.”

Grace first. Sexual pleasure,
then a boiling new life begins,
and the Friend has something good to eat.

Eventually the chickpea
will say to the cook,
“Boil me some more.
Hit me with the skimming spoon.
I can’t do this by myself.
I’m like an elephant that dreams of gardens
back in Hindustan and doesn’t pay attention
to his driver. You’re my Cook, my Driver,
my Way into Existence. I love your cooking.”

The Cook says,
“I was once like you,
fresh from the ground. Then I boiled in Time,
and boiled in the Body, two fierce boilings.
My animal-soul grew powerful.
I controlled it with practices,
and boiled some more, and boiled
once beyond that,
and became your Teacher.”

- Rumi

* * *

The Parrot in You

There is parrot in you that God speaks through.
What the parrot says, you see reflected

in phenomena. The parrot takes away what you think
you like and gives joy. She hurts you and you feel

the perfect justice of the pain. You were burning
up your soul to keep the body delighted,

but you didn’t know what you were doing. I am
another kind of fire. If you have trash

to get rid of, bring it here. My kindling is always
on the verge of catching. How can such things be

hidden? How can I talk with a raging lion inside me?
The lion that wants union cannot be contained by

any meadow. I try to think of different rhyme-words,
but the Friend says, “Think only of me. Sit and rest

in my presence, where you yourself rhyme with me!
What are words anyway? Thorns in the hedge

that goes around the vineyard. I’ll make word-sounds
unintelligible. I can talk to you without them!

You are the consciousness of the world, and I want
to tell you what I didn’t tell Adam, or Abraham,

what Jesus held back from saying.” Language has been
qualified up until now with signifiers denoting

positive and negative. No more of that. The true self
is a no-self. Fall in love with the lover who

disappears in a love for you. Be water searching
for thirst. Be silent and all ear. When Spring

ecstasy floods, build a dam or everything will wash
away. Oh let it go! Under the foundation’s ruins

there’s a treasure. Those drowned in God want to be
more drowned. They can’t decide, being thrown

about, whether they love more the bottom,
the surface, or some middle region.

- Rumi

* * *

Spill the oil lamp.
Set this dry, boring place on fire!

If you have ever made wanton love with God,
Then you have ignited that brilliant inner light inside
That every person needs.

So
Spill
The oil…

-Hafiz

* * *

Your
Eye
Is so wise
It keeps turning, turning
Needing to touch beauty.

It keeps turning,
Needing to find a mirror
That will caress you
As I.

-Hafiz

* * *

Longing for a Sublime State

I am like a heroin addict
In my longing for a sublime state,
For that ground of Conscious Nothing
Where the Rose ever blooms.

O, the Friend
Has done me a great favor
And has so thoroughly ruined my life –
What else could you expect
Seeing God would do!

Out of the ashes of this broken frame
There is a noble rising son pining for death,
Because,
Since we first met, Beloved,
I have become a foreigner
To every world
Except that one
In which there is only You
Or – Me.

Now that the heart has held
That which can never be touched
My subsistence is a blessed desolation
And from that I cry for more loneliness.
I am lonely.

I am so lonely, dear Beloved,
For the quintessence of loneliness,
For what is more alone than God?

Hafiz,
What is more pure and alone,
Magnificently Sovereign,
Than God?

-Hafiz

* * *

I rarely let the word “No” escape
From my mouth
Because it is so plain to my soul
That God has shouted, “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
To every luminous movement in existence.

-Hafiz

* * *

It Doesn’t Interest Me

It doesn’t interest me if there is one God or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel abandoned,
if you know despair or can see it in others.
I want to know if you are prepared to live in the world with its harsh
need to change you.
If you can look back with firm eyes saying this is where I stand.
I want to know if you know how to melt into that fierce heat of living
falling toward the center of your longing.
I want to know if you are willing to live, day by day, with the
consequence of love and the bitter unwanted passion of your sure defeat.

I have been told, in that fierce embrace, even the gods speak of God.

- David Whyte

* * *

In Many Parts of the World

In many parts of the world water is scarce and precious.
People sometimes have to walk a great distance
then carry heavy jugs upon their heads.
Because of our wisdom, we will travel far for love.
All movement is a sign of thirst.
Most speaking really says “I am hungry to know you.”
Every desire of your body is holy.
Every desire of your body is holy.
Dear one, why wait until you are dying to discover this divine truth?

-Hafiz

* * *

A Man Breaking Up The Soil

A man was breaking up the soil,
when another man came by, “Why
are you ruining this land?”

“Don’t be a fool! Nothing can
grow until the ground
is turned over and crumbled.

There can be no roses
and no orchard
without first this that looks devastating.

You must lance an ulcer in order to heal it.
You must tear down parts of an old building
to restore it, and so it is with a sensual life
that has no spirit in it.

To change,
a person must face the dragon of his appetites
with another dragon, the life-energy
of the soul.”

When that’s not strong,
the world seems to be full of people
who have your own fears and wantings.

As one thinks the room is spinning
when he’s whirling around.

When your love contracts in anger,
the atmosphere itself feels threatening.

But when you’re expansive, no matter
what the weather, you’re in an open,
windy field with friends.

Many people travel to Syria and Iraq
and meet only hypocrites.

Others go all the way to India
and see just merchants buying and selling.

Others go to Turkestan and China
and find those countries filled
with sneak-thieves and cheats.

We always see the qualities
that are living in us.

A cow may walk from one side of the amazing city
of Baghdad to the other and notice only
a watermelon rind and a tuft of hay
that fell off a wagon.

Don’t keep repeatedly doing
what your animal-soul wants to do.
That’s like decided to be a strip of meat
nailed and drying on a board in the sun.

Your spirit needs to follow the changes happening
in the spacious place it knows about.

There, the scene is always new,
a clairvoyant river of picturing,
more beautiful than any on earth.

This is where the sufis wash.
Purify your eyes, and see the pure world.
Your life will fill with radiant forms.

It’s a question of cleaning
then developing spiritual senses.
See beyond phenomena.

- Rumi

* * *

Both Light and Shadow

Both light and shadow are the dance of love.
Love has no cause; it is the astrolabe of God’s secrets.
Lover and loving are inseparable and timeless.

Although I may try to describe love,
when I experience it, I am speechless.
Although I may try to write about love, I am rendered helpless;
my pen breaks and the paper slips away at the ineffable place
where lover, loving, and loved are one.

Every moment is made glorious by the light of love.

- Rumi

* * *

Today

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.

- Rumi

* * *

Out Beyond Ideas

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.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense.

If you want what visible reality
can give, you’re an employee.

If you want the unseen world,
you’re not living your truth.

Both wishes are foolish,
but you’ll be forgiven for forgetting
that what you really want is
love’s confusing joy.

- Rumi

* * *

I Don’t Want Learning

I don’t want learning or dignity or respectability.
I want this music and this dawn
and the warmth of your cheek against mine.
The grief-armies assemble, but I’m not going with them.
This is how it always is when I finish a poem.
A great silence overcomes me,
and I wonder why I ever thought to use language.

- Rumi

* * *

You Were Alone

You were alone.
I got you to sing.
You were quiet.
I made you tell long stories.
No one knew who you were,
but they do now.
The secret you told, tell again.
If you refuse, I’ll start crying.
Then you’ll say, “Shhhh… Now listen – I’ll say it over.”
I have lived on the lip of insanity –
wanting to know reasons,
knocking on a door.
It opens.
I’ve been knocking from the inside!

Joyful for no reason, I want to see beyond this existence.
You open you lips, laughing.
I think of a design for that opening.
What I most want is to spring out of this personality,
Then, to sit apart from that leaping.

I’ve lived too long where I can be reached.
Since I’ve been away from You, I only know how to weep.
Like a candle, melting is who I am.
Like a harp, any sound I make is music.

In complete control…
Pretending control,
with dignified authority.
We are charlatans,
or maybe just a goat’s hair brush in a painter’s hand.

We have no idea what we are.

We donate a cloak to the man who does the washing.
We feel proud of our generosity.
We stare at the infinite suffering ocean.
We fall in.

My work is to carry this love as comfort for those
who long for You, to go everywhere You’ve walked
and gaze at the pressed-down dirt.

- Rumi

* * *

Dissolver of Sugar

Dissolver of sugar,
dissolve me,
if this is the time.

Do it gently, with a touch
of a hand, or a look.
Every morning at dawn:
That’s when it happened before.

Or do it suddenly, like an execution.
How else can I get ready for this death?

You breathe without a body like a spark.
You grieve, and I begin to feel lighter.
You keep me away from your arm,
but the keeping me away is pulling me in.

Dissolver of sugar,
dissolve me,
if this is the time.

- Rumi

* * *

I Like My Body

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh . . . . And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new

- e. e. cummings

* * *

Sonnet 29:

When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone bewept my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least,
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despairing,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state
(Like to the lark at the break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hyms at heaven’s gate,
For they sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

- Shakespeare

* * *

Everything is the original law;
Every day the morning sun
Clears the sky,
In every mind there is no
Separate mind.
In every place the pure wind
Circles the earth.
If you can understand in this way,
Then there is no need for Buddha
To appear in this world
Or for Bodhidharma to come
From the west.

- Daio (1235-1309)

* * *

Everywhere turn around freely,
Not following conditions,
Not falling into classification.
Facing everything, let go and
Attain stability.
So it is said that the earth lifts
Up the mountain without
Knowing the mountain’s
Stark steepness.
A rock contains jade without
Knowing the jade’s flawlessness.
This is how truly to leave home.

- Hongzhi Zhengjue (1091-1157)

* * *

All the Talents of God

All the talents of God are within you.

How could this be otherwise
when your soul
derived from His genes!

I love that expression,
“All the talents of God are within you.”

Sometimes Hafiz cannot help but to applaud
certain words the rise from my depths
like the scent of a lover’s body.

Hold this book close to your heart
for it contains wonderful secrets.

- Hafiz

* * *

It Is Unanimous

It is unanimous where I come from.
Everyone agrees on one thing:
It’s no fun
when God is not near.

All are hunters.
The wise man learns the Friend’s weaknesses
and sets a clever trap.

Listen,
the Beloved has agreed to play a game
called
love.

Our sun sat in the sky
way before this earth was borh
waiting to caress a billion faces.

Hafiz encourages all art
for at its height it brings Light near to us

The wise man learns what draws God near.

It is the beauty of compassion
in your heart.

- Hafiz

* * *

The Vintage Artist

The difference between a good artist
and a great one is:
the novice will often lay down his tool or brush
then pick up an invisible club
on the mind’s table
and helplessly smash the easels and jade.

Whereas the vintage man
no longer hurts himself or anyone
and keeps on
sculpting
light.

- Hafiz

* * *

If God Invited You to a Party

If God invited you to a party and said,
“Everyone in the ballroom tonight will be my special guest,”
how would you treat them when you arrived?

Indeed, indeed!

And Hafiz knows
there is no one in this world
who is not upon
His jeweled dance floor.

- Hafiz

* * *

Who Wrote All the Music

Why is it now
that I come to you like a humble servant
willing to feed you brilliant words and love
from my own sacred mouth and hands,
willing to say, “I am sorry,
I am sorry for all your pain?”

Is it because when God
fully revealed Himself in me
I saw that it was Hafiz
who wrote all the music you have been playing.

I saw it was Hafiz who wrote all your notes of sadness,
but also etched and gave you
every ecstatic wince of joy that your face, body,
and heart have ever known.

Okay, my dear,
you have stumbled enough in the earth’s sweet dance.
You have paid all your dues
many times.

Now let’s get down to the real reason
why we sit together and breathe
and begin the laughing, the divine laughing,
like great heroic women
and magnificent
strong men.

- Hafiz

* * *

The Worm’s Waking

This is how a human being can change:

There’s a worm addicted to eating grape leaves.

Suddenly, he wakes up,
call it Grace, watever,
something wakes him, and he’s no longer a worm.

He’s the entire vineyard,
and the orchard too, the fruit, the trunks,
a growing wisdom and joy
that doesn’t need to devour.

- Rumi

* * *

Bayazid Bestami

That magnificent dervish, Bayazid Bestami,
came to his disciples and said,
“I am God.”
It was night, and he was drunki with his ecstasy.
“There is no God but me. You should worship me.”

At dawn, when he had returned to normal,
they came and told him what he’d said.
“If I say that again,
bring your knives and plunge them into me.
God is beyond the body, and I am in this body.
Kill me when I say that.”

Each student then sharpened his knife,
and again Bayazid Bestami drank the God-wine.
The sweet dessert-knowing came. The Inner Dawn
snuffed his candle. Reason, like a timid advisor,
raded to a far corner as the Sun Sultan
entered Bayazid.

Pure spirie spoke through him.
Bayazid was not there. The “he” of his personality
dissolved. Like the Turk who spoke fluent Arabic,
then came to, and didn’t know a word.

The Light of God
poured into the empty Bayazid and became words.
Muhammed did not disctat the Qur’an. God did.
The mystic osprey opened its wings in Bayazid
and soared.

“Inside my robe
there is nothing but God.
How long will you keep looking elsewhere!”

The disciples drew their knives and slashed out
like assassins, but as they stabbed at their Sheikh,
they did not cut Bayazid. They cut themselves.

There was no mark on that Adept,
but the students were bleeding and dying.

Those who somewhat held back, respecting their Teacher,
had only lightly wounded themselves.

A selfless One
disappears into Existence and is safe there.
He becomes a mirror. If you spit at it,
you spit at your own face.

If you see an ugly face there, it’s yours.
If you see Jesus and Mary, they’re you.

Bayazid became nothing,
that clear and that empty.

A saint puts your image before you.
When I reach this point, I have to close my lips.

Those of you who are love-drunk of the edge of the roof,
sit down, or climb down.
Every moment spent in Union with the Beloved
is a dangerous delight,
like standing on a roof-edge.

Be afraid up there, of losing that connection,
and don’t tell anybody about it.
Keep your secret.

- Rumi

* * *

If I hold you with my emotions,
you’ll become a wished-for companion.

If I hold you with my eyes,
you’ll grow old and die.

So I hold you where we
both mix with the infinite.

- Rumi

* * *

Obliteration into Love

Love comes with a knife, not some shy question,
and not with fears for its reputation!

I say these things disinterestedly,
accept them in kind.

Love is a madman,
working his wild schemes,
tearing off his clothes, running
through the mountains, drinking poison,
and now quietly choosing annihilation.

A tiny spider tries to wrap an enormous wasp.
Think of the spiderweb woven across
the cave where Mohammed slept!

There are love stories,
and there is obliteration into love,

You’ve been walking the ocean’s edge,
holding up your robes to keep them dry.

You must dive naked under, and deeper
under, a thousand times deeper!

Love flows down. The ground submits
to the sky and suffers what comes.

Tell me, is the earth worse
for giving in like that?

Don’t put blankets over the drum!
Open completely. Let your spirit-ear
listen to the green dome’s passionate murmur.

- Rumi

* * *

Love Dogs

One night a man was crying,
“Allah! Allah!”
His lips grew sweet with the praising,
until a cynic said,
“So! I have heard you calling out,
but have you ever gotten any response?”

The man had no answer to that.
He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep.

He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls,
in a thick, green foliage.

“Why did you stop praising?”

“Because I’ve never heard anything back.”

“This longing you express is the return message.”

The grief you cry out from
draws you toward union.

Your pure sadness
that wants help
is the secret cup.

Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.
That whining is the connection.

There are love-dogs
no one knows the names of.

Give you life
to be one of them.

- Rumi

* * *

Die Before You Die

Love’s sun is the face of the Friend.
This other sunlight is covering that.

The day and the daily bread that comes
are not to be worshipped for themselves.

Praise the great heart within those,
and the loving ache in yourself
that’s part of that.

Be one of God’s fish
who receives what it needs
directly from the ocean around it –
food, shelter, sleep, medicine.

The lover is like a baby at its mother’s breast,
knowing nothing of the visible or invisible worlds.
Everything is milk,
though it couldn’t define it intellectually.
It can’t talk.

This is the riddle
that drives the spirit crazy.:
That the opener and that which is opened
are the same!
That it’s the ocean inside the fish
bearing it along, not the river-water.

The time-river spreads and disappears
into the ocean with the fish.

A seed breaks open and dissolves
into the ground. Only then
does a new fig tree come into being.

That’s the meaning of
Die before you die.

- Rumi

* * *

Don’t Postpone Your Yes!

Muhammed is said to have said,
“Whoever belongs to God, God belongs to.”

Our weak, uneven breathings,
these dissolving personalities,
were breathed out by the eternal
Huuuuu, that never changes!

A drop of water constantly fears
that it may evaporate into air,
or be absorbed by the ground.

It doesn’t want to be used up
in those ways, but when it lets go
and falls into the ocean it came from,
it finds protection from the other deaths.

Its droplet form is gone,
but its watery essence has become
vast and inviolable.

Listen to me, friends, because you
are a drop, and you can honor youreslves
in this way. What could be luckier
than to have the ocean come
to court the drop?

For God’s sake, don’t postpone your Yes!
Give up and become the giver.

- Rumi

* * *

Drunk as Drunk

Drunk as drunk on turpentine
From your open kisses,
Your wet body wedged
Between my wet body and the strake
Of our boat that is made of flowers,
Feasted, we guide it – our fingers
Like tallows adorned with yellow metal -
Over the sky’s hot rim,
The day’s last breath in our sails.

Pinned by the sun between solstice
And equinox, drowsy and tangled together
We drifted for months and woke
With the bitter taste of land on our lips,
Eyelids all sticky, and we longed for lime
And the sound of a rope
Lowering a bucket down its well. Then,
We came by night to the Fortunate Isles,
And lay like fish
Under the net of our kisses.

- Pablo Neruda

* * *

Sonnet XVII

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

- Pablo Neruda

* * *

Sonnet XXXIV – You are the Daughter of the Sea

You are the daughter of the sea, oregano’s first cousin.
Swimmer, your body is pure as the water;
cook, your blood is quick as the soil.
Everything you do is full of flowers, rich with the earth.

Your eyes go out toward the water, and the waves rise;
your hands go out to the earth and the seeds swell;
you know the deep essence of water and the earth,
conjoined in you like a formula for clay.

Naiad: cut your body into turquoise pieces,
they will bloom resurrected in the kitchen.
This is how you become everything that lives.
And so at last, you sleep, in the circle of my arms
that push back the shadows so that you can rest -
vegetables, seaweed, herbs: the foam of your dreams.

- Pablo Neruda

* * *

We Are Many

Of the many men whom I am, whom we are,
I cannot settle on a single one.
They are lost to me under the cover of clothing
They have departed for another city.

When everything seems to be set
to show me off as a man of intelligence,
the fool I keep concealed on my person
takes over my talk and occupies my mouth.

On other occasions, I am dozing in the midst
of people of some distinction,
and when I summon my courageous self,
a coward completely unknown to me
swaddles my poor skeleton
in a thousand tiny reservations.

When a stately home bursts into flames,
instead of the fireman I summon,
an arsonist bursts on the scene,
and he is I. There is nothing I can do.
What must I do to distinguish myself?
How can I put myself together?

All the books I read
lionize dazzling hero figures,
brimming with self-assurance.
I die with envy of them;
and, in films where bullets fly on the wind,
I am left in envy of the cowboys,
left admiring even the horses.

But when I call upon my DASHING BEING,
out comes the same OLD LAZY SELF,
and so I never know just WHO I AM,
nor how many I am, nor WHO WE WILL BE BEING.
I would like to be able to touch a bell
and call up my real self, the truly me,
because if I really need my proper self,
I must not allow myself to disappear.

While I am writing, I am far away;
and when I come back, I have already left.
I should like to see if the same thing happens
to other people as it does to me,
to see if as many people are as I am,
and if they seem the same way to themselves.
When this problem has been thoroughly explored,
I am going to school myself so well in things
that, when I try to explain my problems,
I shall speak, not of self, but of geography.

- Pablo Neruda

* * *

Your Feet

When I cannot look at your face
I look at your feet.
Your feet of arched bone,
your hard little feet.
I know that they support you,
and that your sweet weight
rises upon them.
Your waist and your breasts,
the doubled purple
of your nipples,
the sockets of your eyes
that have just flown away,
your wide fruit mouth,
your red tresses,
my little tower.
But I love your feet
only because they walked
upon the earth and upon
the wind and upon the waters,
until they found me.

- Pablo Neruda

* * *

Your Laughter

Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter.

Do not take away the rose,
the lance flower that you pluck,
the water that suddenly
bursts forth in joy,
the sudden wave
of silver born in you.

My struggle is harsh and I come back
with eyes tired
at times from having seen
the unchanging earth,
but when your laughter enters
it rises to the sky seeking me
and it opens for me all
the doors of life.

My love, in the darkest
hour your laughter
opens, and if suddenly
you see my blood staining
the stones of the street,
laugh, because your laughter
will be for my hands
like a fresh sword.

Next to the sea in the autumn,
your laughter must raise
its foamy cascade,
and in the spring, love,
I want your laughter like
the flower I was waiting for,
the blue flower, the rose
of my echoing country.

Laugh at the night,
at the day, at the moon,
laugh at the twisted
streets of the island,
laugh at this clumsy
boy who loves you,
but when I open
my eyes and close them,
when my steps go,
when my steps return,
deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
but never your laughter
for I would die.

- Pablo Neruda

* * *

What Is Love?

Love is not thinkable
Love is giving up everything, including love, for love’s sake
Love is enjoying the frustration of having everything just out of finger’s reach
Love is a fierce volcano, undeniable and trembling
Love is not quiet
Love is the silence that comes from welcoming the noise

Love is staying in the center while all around you burns
Love is having no center, burning to death, and laughing yourself awake
Love is the edge of a knife
Love is the vastness of the ocean
Love is No thing
Love is being steeped in eternity and thus having no time

Love is shouting yes and thank you and hello and welcome and I am here and please and weeping and dancing and spinning and sipping tea and reading the paper.

Love is the courage to be a wimp
Love is making a thousand mistakes, forgiving yourself, and making a thousand more
Love is being blamed for everything and saying thank you
Love is every moment receiving the pain of having never loved
Love is choosing to seek out the unlovable places inside ourselves, and love them awake.

Love is quicksilver
the crest of a wave that never crashes
A flash
a moment
a caress
a whisper
invisible
omnipresent
a choice
a muscle
now
here
this.

Love is being lost and saying hooray!
Love is minding your own business by feeling everyone’s pain
Love is holding your tongue when you are not loving
Love is enjoying the ride as you fall into a black hole
through the eye of the needle
Love is being at the beginning
Love is knowing nothing
Love is breathing inside of blackness

love is terror
nakedness
vulnerability
laughter
ice cream
mashed potatoes
a song
a sword
the bottom
undercoming and always coming
sex
fire
consummation
exhilaration
madness
kindness
apricots
a wisp
a feather
the center of the donut

jumping off a diving board blindfolded, naked, terrified and trusting
hanging by a thread and enjoying the view
trusting your enemies
defending nothing
celebrating having no rights
no options
just the choice to love
breathing
being the one who says “stop” and “please”

Love is the pleasure and the wonder of giving everything up for love

- Rick Smith

* * *

* * *

On Love

Then said Almitra, “Speak to us of Love.”

And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a stillness upon them. And with a great voice he said:
When love beckons to you follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.
All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.
But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, I am in the heart of God.”
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

* * *

On Marriage

Then Almitra spoke again and said, “And what of Marriage, master?”

And he answered saying:
You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when white wings of death scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.

- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

* * *

On Childen

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, “Speak to us of Children.”

And he said:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

* * *

On Giving

Then said a rich man, “Speak to us of Giving.”

And he answered:
You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?
And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow bring to the overprudent dog burying bones in the trackless sand as he follows the pilgrims to the holy city?
And what is fear of need but need itself?
Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, thirst that is unquenchable?
There are those who give little of the much which they have – and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.
And there are those who have little and give it all.
These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.
There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.
And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism.
And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue;
They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.
Through the hands of such as these God speaks, and from behind their eyes He smiles upon the earth.
It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding;
And to the open-handed the search for one who shall receive is joy greater than giving
And is there aught you would withhold?
All you have shall some day be given;
Therefore give now, that the season of giving may be yours and not your inheritors’.
You often say, “I would give, but only to the deserving.”
The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture.
They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.
Surely he who is worthy to receive his days and his nights is worthy of all else from you.
And he who has deserved to drink from the ocean of life deserves to fill his cup from your little stream.
And what desert greater shall there be than that which lies in the courage and the confidence, nay the charity, of receiving?
And who are you that men should rend their bosom and unveil their pride, that you may see their worth naked and their pride unabashed?
See first that you yourself deserve to be a giver, and an instrument of giving.
For in truth it is life that gives unto life – while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.
And you receivers – and you are all receivers – assume no weight of gratitude, lest you lay a yoke upon yourself and upon him who gives.
Rather rise together with the giver on his gifts as on wings;
For to be overmindful of your debt, is to doubt his generosity who has the free-hearted earth for mother, and God for father.

- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

* * *

On Eating and Drinking

Then an old man, a keeper of an inn, said, “Speak to us of Eating and Drinking.”

And he said:
Would that you could live on the fragerance of the earth, and like an air plant be sustained by the light.
But since you must kill to eat, and rob the young of its mother’s milk to quench your thirst, let it then be an act of worship,
And let your board stand an altar on which the pure and the innocent of forest and plain are sacrificed for that which is purer and still more innocent in many.
When you kill a beast say to him in your heart,
“By the same power that slays you, I to am slain; and I too shall be consumed.
For the law that delivered you into my hand shall deliver me into a mightier hand.
Your blood and my blood is naught but the sap that feeds the tree of heaven.”
And when you crush an apple with your teeth, say to it in your heart,
“Your seeds shall live in my body,
And the buds of your tomorrow shall blossom in my heart,
And your fragrance shall be my breath,
And together we shall rejoice through all the seasons.”
And in the autumn, when you gather the grapes of your vineyard for the winepress, say in you heart,
“I to am a vinyard, and my fruit shall be gathered for the winepress,
And like new wine I shall be kept in eternal vessels.”
And in winter, when you draw the wine, let there be in your heart a song for each cup;
And let there be in the song a remembrance for the autumn days, and for the vineyard, and for the winepress.

- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

* * *

On Work

Then a ploughman said, “Speak to us of Work.”

And he answered, saying:
You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life’s procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.
When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.
Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?
Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.
But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born,
And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,
And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.
But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.
You have been told also life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.
And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love;
And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.
And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.
Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, “he who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is a nobler than he who ploughs the soil.
And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet.”
But I say, not in sleep but in the over-wakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass;
And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.
Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.

- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

* * *

On Joy & Sorrow

Then a woman said, “Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.”

And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that hold your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.”

- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

* * *

On Houses

Then a mason came forth and said, “Speak to us of Houses.”

And he answered and said:
Build of your imaginings a bower in the wilderness ere you build a house within the city walls.
For even as you have home-comings in your twilight, so has the wanderer in you, the ever distant and alone.
Your house is your larger body.
It grows in the sun and sleeps in the stillness of the night; and it is not dreamless. Does not your house dream? And dreaming, leave the city for grove or hilltop?
Would that I could gather your houses into my hand, and like a sower scatter them in forest and meadow.
Would the valleys were your streets, and the green paths your alleys, that you might seek one another through vineyards, and come with the fragrance of the earth in your garments.
But these things are not yet to be.
In their fear your forefathers gathered you too near together. And that fear shall endure a little longer. A little longer shall your city walls separate your hearths from your fields.
And tell me, people of Orphalese, what have you in these houses? And what is it you guard with fastened doors?
Have you peace, the quiet urge that reveals your power?
Have you remembrances, the glimmering arches that span the summits of the mind?
Have you beauty, that leads the heart from things fashioned of wood and stone to the holy mountain?
Tell me, have you these in your houses?
Or have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and becomes a host, and then a master?
Ay, and it becomes a tamer, and with hook and scourge makes puppets of your larger desires.
Though its hands are silken, its heart is of iron.
It lulls you to sleep only to stand by your bed and jeer at the dignity of the flesh.
It makes mock of your sound senses, and lays them in thistledown like fragile vessels.
Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral.
But you, children of space, you restless in rest, you shall not be trapped nor tamed.
Your house shall be not an anchor but a mast.
It shall not be a glistening film that covers a wound, but an eyelid that guards the eye.
You shall not fold your wings that you may pass through doors, nor bend your heads that they strike not against a ceiling, nor fear to breathe lest walls should crack and fall down.
You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living.
And though of magnificence and splendour, your house shall not hold your secret nor shelter your longing.
For that which is boundless in you abides in the mansion of the sky, whose door is the morning mist, and whose windows are the songs and the silences of night. *

- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

* * *

On Clothes

And the weaver said, “Speak to us of Clothes.”

And he answered:
Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful.
And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy you may find in them a harness and a chain.
Would that you could meet the sun and the wind with more of your skin and less of your raiment,
For the breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of life is in the wind.
Some of you say, “It is the north wind who has woven the clothes to wear.”
But shame was his loom, and the softening of the sinews was his thread.
And when his work was done he laughed in the forest.
Forget not that modesty is for a shield against the eye of the unclean.
And when the unclean shall be no more, what were modesty but a fetter and a fouling of the mind?
And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

* * *

On Buying & Selling

And a merchant said, “Speak to us of Buying and Selling.”

And he answered and said:
To you the earth yields her fruit, and you shall not want if you but know how to fill your hands.
It is in exchanging the gifts of the earth that you shall find abundance and be satisfied.
Yet unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice, it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger.
When in the market place you toilers of the sea and fields and vineyards meet the weavers and the potters and the gatherers of spices, -
Invoke then the master spirit of the earth, to come into your midst and sanctify the scales and the reckoning that weighs value against value.
And suffer not the barren-handed to take part in your transactions, who would sell their words for your labour.
To such men you should say,
“Come with us to the field, or go with our brothers to the sea and cast your net;
For the land and the sea shall be bountiful to you even as to us.”
And if there come the singers and the dancers and the flute players, – buy of their gifts also.
For they too are gatherers of fruit and frankincense, and that which they bring, though fashioned of dreams, is raiment and food for your soul.
And before you leave the marketplace, see that no one has gone his way with empty hands.
For the master spirit of the earth shall not sleep peacefully upon the wind till the needs of the least of you are satisfied.

- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

* * *

On Laws

Then a lawyer said, “But what of our Laws, master?”

And he answered:
You delight in laying down laws,
Yet you delight more in breaking them.
Like children playing by the ocean who build sand-towers with constancy and then destroy them with laughter.
But while you build your sand-towers the ocean brings more sand to the shore,
And when you destroy them, the ocean laughs with you.
Verily the ocean laughs always with the innocent.
But what of those to whom life is not an ocean, and man-made laws are not sand-towers,
But to whom life is a rock, and the law a chisel with which they would carve it in their own likeness?
What of the cripple who hates dancers?
What of the ox who loves his yoke and deems the elk and deer of the forest stray and vagrant things?
What of the old serpent who cannot shed his skin, and calls all others naked and shameless?
And of him who comes early to the wedding-feast, and when over-fed and tired goes his way saying that all feasts are violation and all feasters law-breakers?
What shall I say of these save that they too stand in the sunlight, but with their backs to the sun?
They see only their shadows, and their shadows are their laws.
And what is the sun to them but a caster of shadows?
And what is it to acknowledge the laws but to stoop down and trace their shadows upon the earth?
But you who walk facing the sun, what images drawn on the earth can hold you?
You who travel with the wind, what weathervane shall direct your course?
What man’s law shall bind you if you break your yoke but upon no man’s prison door?
What laws shall you fear if you dance but stumble against no man’s iron chains?
And who is he that shall bring you to judgment if you tear off your garment yet leave it in no man’s path?
People of Orphalese, you can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing?

- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

* * *

On Freedom

And an orator said, “Speak to us of Freedom.”

And he answered:
At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom,
Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise him though he slays them.
Ay, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the citadel I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff.
And my heart bled within me; for you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfillment.
You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief,
But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.
And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights unless you break the chains which you at the dawn of your understanding have fastened around your noon hour?
In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle the eyes.
And what is it but fragments of your own self you would discard that you may become free?
If it is an unjust law you would abolish, that law was written with your own hand upon your own forehead.
You cannot erase it by burning your law books nor by washing the foreheads of your judges, though you pour the sea upon them.
And if it is a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed.
For how can a tyrant rule the free and the proud, but for a tyranny in their own freedom and a shame in their won pride?
And if it is a care you would cast off, that care has been chosen by you rather than imposed upon you.
And if it is a fear you would dispel, the seat of that fear is in your heart and not in the hand of the feared.
Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace, the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the pursued and that which you would escape.
These things move within you as lights and shadows in pairs that cling.
And when the shadow fades and is no more, the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light.
And thus your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom.

- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

* * *

On Reason & Passion

And the priestess spoke again and said:

“Speak to us of Reason and Passion.”
And he answered saying:
Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against passion and your appetite.
Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody.
But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements?
Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul.
If either your sails or our rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.
For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.
Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion; that it may sing;
And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.
I would have you consider your judgment and your appetite even as you would two loved guests in your house.
Surely you would not honour one guest above the other; for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both.
Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows – then let your heart say in silence, “God rests in reason.”
And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky, – then let your heart say in awe, “God moves in passion.”
And since you are a breath In God’s sphere, and a leaf in God’s forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.

- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

* * *

On Pain

And a woman spoke, saying, “Tell us of Pain.”

And he said:
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.
Much of your pain is self-chosen.
It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity:
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.

- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

* * *

On Self-Knowledge

And a man said, “Speak to us of Self-Knowledge.”

And he answered, saying:
Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.
But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart’s knowledge.
You would know in words that which you have always known in thought.
You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams.
And it is well you should.
The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea;
And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.
But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure;
And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.
For self is a sea boundless and measureless.
Say not, “I have found the truth,” but rather, “I have found a truth.”
Say not, “I have found the path of the soul.” Say rather, “I have met the soul walking upon my path.”
For the soul walks upon all paths.
The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.
The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.

- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

* * *

On Teaching

Then said a teacher, “Speak to us of Teaching.”

And he said:
No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of our knowledge.
The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.
If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.
The astronomer may speak to you of his understanding of space, but he cannot give you his understanding.
The musician may sing to you of the rhythm which is in all space, but he cannot give you the ear which arrests the rhythm nor the voice that echoes it.
And he who is versed in the science of numbers can tell of the regions of weight and measure, but he cannot conduct you thither.
For the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man.
And even as each one of you stands alone in God’s knowledge, so must each one of you be alone in his knowledge of God and in his understanding of the earth.

- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

* * *

On Friendship

And a youth said, “Speak to us of Friendship.”

Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.
When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the “nay” in your own mind, nor do you withhold the “ay.”
And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;
For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.
When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.
And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.
For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

* * *

On Talking

And then a scholar said, “Speak of Talking.”

And he answered, saying:
You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;
And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime.
And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.
For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words many indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.
There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone.
The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes their naked selves and they would escape.
And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand.
And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words.
In the bosom of such as these the spirit dwells in rhythmic silence.
When you meet your friend on the roadside or in the market place, let the spirit in you move your lips and direct your tongue.
Let the voice within your voice speak to the ear of his ear;
For his soul will keep the truth of your heart as the taste of the wine is remembered
When the colour is forgotten and the vessel is no more.

- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

* * *

On Time

And an astronomer said, “Master, what of Time?”

And he answered:
You would measure time the measureless and the immeasurable.
You would adjust your conduct and even direct the course of your spirit according to hours and seasons.
Of time you would make a stream upon whose bank you would sit and watch its flowing.
Yet the timeless in you is aware of life’s timelessness,
And knows that yesterday is but today’s memory and tomorrow is today’s dream.
And that that which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space.
Who among you does not feel that his power to love is boundless?
And yet who does not feel that very love, though boundless, encompassed within the centre of his being, and moving not form love thought to love thought, nor from love deeds to other love deeds?
And is not time even as love is, undivided and paceless?
But if in you thought you must measure time into seasons, let each season encircle all the other seasons,
And let today embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing.

- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

* * *

On Good & Evil

And one of the elders of the city said, “Speak to us of Good and Evil.”

And he answered:
Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.
For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?
Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts, it drinks even of dead waters.
You are good when you are one with yourself.
Yet when you are not one with yourself you are not evil.
For a divided house is not a den of thieves; it is only a divided house.
And a ship without rudder may wander aimlessly among perilous isles yet sink not to the bottom.
You are good when you strive to give of yourself.
Yet you are not evil when you seek gain for yourself.
For when you strive for gain you are but a root that clings to the earth and sucks at her breast.
Surely the fruit cannot say to the root, “Be like me, ripe and full and ever giving of your abundance.”
For to the fruit giving is a need, as receiving is a need to the root.
You are good when you are fully awake in your speech,
Yet you are not evil when you sleep while your tongue staggers without purpose.
And even stumbling speech may strengthen a weak tongue.
You are good when you walk to your goal firmly and with bold steps.
Yet you are not evil when you go thither limping.
Even those who limp go not backward.
But you who are strong and swift, see that you do not limp before the lame, deeming it kindness.
You are good in countless ways, and you are not evil when you are not good,
You are only loitering and sluggard.
Pity that the stags cannot teach swiftness to the turtles.
In your longing for your giant self lies your goodness: and that longing is in all of you.
But in some of you that longing is a torrent rushing with might to the sea, carrying the secrets of the hillsides and the songs of the forest.
And in others it is a flat stream that loses itself in angles and bends and lingers before it reaches the shore.
But let not him who longs much say to him who longs little, “Wherefore are you slow and halting?”
For the truly good ask not the naked, “Where is your garment?” nor the houseless, “What has befallen your house?”

- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

* * *

On Prayer

Then a priestess said, “Speak to us of Prayer.”

And he answered, saying:
You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.
For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether?
And if it is for your comfort to pour your darkness into space, it is also for your delight to pour forth the dawning of your heart.
And if you cannot but weep when your soul summons you to prayer, she should spur you again and yet again, though weeping, until you shall come laughing.
When you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are praying at that very hour, and whom save in prayer you may not meet.
Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible be for naught but ecstasy and sweet communion.
For if you should enter the temple for no other purpose than asking you shall not receive.
And if you should enter into it to humble yourself you shall not be lifted:
Or even if you should enter into it to beg for the good of others you shall not be heard.
It is enough that you enter the temple invisible.
I cannot teach you how to pray in words.
God listens not to your words save when He Himself utters them through your lips.
And I cannot teach you the prayer of the seas and the forests and the mountains.
But you who are born of the mountains and the forests and the seas can find their prayer in your heart,
And if you but listen in the stillness of the night you shall hear them saying in silence,
“Our God, who art our winged self, it is thy will in us that willeth.
It is thy desire in us that desireth.
It is thy urge in us that would turn our nights, which are thine, into days which are thine also.
We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born in us:
Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all.”

- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

* * *

On Pleasure

Then a hermit, who visited the city once a year, came forth and said, “Speak to us of Pleasure.”

And he answered, saying:
Pleasure is a freedom song,
But it is not freedom.
It is the blossoming of your desires,
But it is not their fruit.
It is a depth calling unto a height,
But it is not the deep nor the high.
It is the caged taking wing,
But it is not space encompassed.
Ay, in very truth, pleasure is a freedom-song.
And I fain would have you sing it with fullness of heart; yet I would not have you lose your hearts in the singing.
Some of your youth seek pleasure as if it were all, and they are judged and rebuked.
I would not judge nor rebuke them. I would have them seek.
For they shall find pleasure, but not her alone:
Seven are her sisters, and the least of them is more beautiful than pleasure.
Have you not heard of the man who was digging in the earth for roots and found a treasure?
And some of your elders remember pleasures with regret like wrongs committed in drunkenness.
But regret is the beclouding of the mind and not its chastisement.
They should remember their pleasures with gratitude, as they would the harvest of a summer.
Yet if it comforts them to regret, let them be comforted.
And there are among you those who are neither young to seek nor old to remember;
And in their fear of seeking and remembering they shun all pleasures, lest they neglect the spirit or offend against it.
But even in their foregoing is their pleasure.
And thus they too find a treasure though they dig for roots with quivering hands.
But tell me, who is he that can offend the spirit?
Shall the nightingale offend the stillness of the night, or the firefly the stars?
And shall your flame or your smoke burden the wind?
Think you the spirit is a still pool which you can trouble with a staff?
Oftentimes in denying yourself pleasure you do but store the desire in the recesses of your being.
Who knows but that which seems omitted today, waits for tomorrow?
Even your body knows its heritage and its rightful need and will not be deceived.
And your body is the harp of your soul,
And it is yours to bring forth sweet music from it or confused sounds.
And now you ask in your heart, “How shall we distinguish that which is good in pleasure from that which is not good?”
Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower,
But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee.
For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life,
And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love,
And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy.
People of Orphalese, be in your pleasures like the flowers and the bees.

- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

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On Beauty

And a poet said, “Speak to us of Beauty.”

Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide?
And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech?
The aggrieved and the injured say, “Beauty is kind and gentle.
Like a young mother half-shy of her own glory she walks among us.”
And the passionate say, “Nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread.
Like the tempest she shakes the earth beneath us and the sky above us.”
The tired and the weary say, “beauty is of soft whisperings. She speaks in our spirit.
Her voice yields to our silences like a faint light that quivers in fear of the shadow.”
But the restless say, “We have heard her shouting among the mountains,
And with her cries came the sound of hoofs, and the beating of wings and the roaring of lions.”
At night the watchmen of the city say, “Beauty shall rise with the dawn from the east.”
And at noontide the toilers and the wayfarers say, “we have seen her leaning over the earth from the windows of the sunset.”
In winter say the snow-bound, “She shall come with the spring leaping upon the hills.”
And in the summer heat the reapers say, “We have seen her dancing with the autumn leaves, and we saw a drift of snow in her hair.”
All these things have you said of beauty.
Yet in truth you spoke not of her but of needs unsatisfied,
And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy.
It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth,
But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted.
It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear,
But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears.
It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw,
But rather a garden for ever in bloom and a flock of angels for ever in flight.
People of Orphalese, beauty is life when life unveils her holy face.
But you are life and you are the veil.
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and your are the mirror.

- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

* * *

On Religion

And an old priest said, “Speak to us of Religion.”

And he said:
Have I spoken this day of aught else?
Is not religion all deeds and all reflection,
And that which is neither deed nor reflection, but a wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul, even while the hands hew the stone or tend the loom?
Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations?
Who can spread his hours before him, saying, “This for God and this for myself; This for my soul, and this other for my body?”
All your hours are wings that beat through space from self to self.
He who wears his morality but as his best garment were better naked.
The wind and the sun will tear no holes in his skin.
And he who defines his conduct by ethics imprisons his song-bird in a cage.
The freest song comes not through bars and wires.
And he to whom worshipping is a window, to open but also to shut, has not yet visited the house of his soul whose windows are from dawn to dawn.
Your daily life is your temple and your religion.
Whenever you enter into it take with you your all.
Take the plough and the forge and the mallet and the lute,
The things you have fashioned in necessity or for delight.
For in revery you cannot rise above your achievements nor fall lower than your failures.
And take with you all men:
For in adoration you cannot fly higher than their hopes nor humble yourself lower than their despair.
And if you would know God be not therefore a solver of riddles.
Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children.
And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain.
You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees.

- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

* * *

On Death

Then Almitra spoke, saying, “We would ask now of Death.”

And he said:
You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?
The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.
In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;
And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.
Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour.
Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king?
Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?
For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

- Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

* * *