You have to feel the fire yourself

As much as I love the Sufi poets, I'm not very well-read as my brain simply can't take in more than a just little poetry at any given time. But maybe that lets me love a single poem a little bit more. Here is a small salty, bitter, sweet and sour poem from Rumi (1207-1273) that I really love right now. 

As always, take it with an extra grain of salt, as this is merely my very subtle reworking of Coleman Barks' 2001 reworking ("Sour, Doughy, Numb, and Raw") of translations by John Moyne, Arthur J. Arberry, and others from the original Persian. My hope was to try to get a little closer in English to what I felt was the heart of the theme.

Holi Festival of Colours

If we're not together in the heart,

what's the point? When body

and soul aren't dancing, there's

no pleasure in wearing colorful

clothes. What good are cooking

pans when there's no food in the

house? In this world full of fresh

bread, amber and musk—such an

array of fragrances—what are they

to someone with no sense of smell?

If you stay away from fire, you'll stay

sour, doughy, numb and raw. You may

have lovely, just-baked loaves all

around you, but those friends can't

help. You have to feel the oven's fire

yourself, crust to core. I would never

have known the truth of what love is

had I never felt this boundless longing.

Anything done to excess becomes boring,

except this overflow that moves toward you.

Work in the invisible

Something from Rumi's (1207-1273) Masnavi, Book III, lines 3077-3109 and one other segment, in somewhat loose translation as always. 
For everyone who fights for hope.

Two Face : David Sanford

The prophets

have wondered to themselves,
"How long

should we keep pounding 
this cold iron?
How long

do we have to whisper 
into an empty cage?"

So don't be timid.
Load the ship and set out.
No one knows for certain

whether the vessel will sink
or reach the harbor.

Just don't 
be one of those merchants

who won't risk the ocean!
This is much more important

than losing or making money!

This is your connection to God.
You must set fire to have light.

Think of the fear and the hope

you have about your livelihood.
They make you go to work

diligently each day.

Now consider what

the prophets have done.

Abraham wore fire

for an anklet.
Moses spoke to the sea.
David molded iron.
Solomon rode the wind.

Work in the invisible world
at least as hard

as you do in the visible.

Be companions 

with the prophets
invisibly,

so that no one knows.

You can't imagine 

what profit will come!

When one of those generous ones

invites you into his fire,

go quickly!

Don't say,

"But will it burn me?
Will it hurt?"

Rise!

Move around the center

as pilgrims wind the Kaaba.

Being still

is how one clay clod

sticks to another in sleep,

while movement wakes us up

and unlocks

new blessings.

Now is the time

Hafez (1326–1390) always has something to say worth hearing in any language or century.

Now is the time to know

that all you do

is sacred.

Now,

why not consider

a lasting truce 

with yourself and God.

Now is the time 
to understand
that all your ideas of right and wrong
were just child's training wheels
to be laid aside 

When you can 
finally live

with veracity

and love.

Hafez is a divine envoy

whom the Beloved has
written

a holy message 
upon—

My dear, 
please tell me,

why 
do you still throw sticks
at your heart 
and God?

What is it within 
that sweet voice inside

that incites 
you to fear?

Now is the time 

for the world to know

that every thought 
and action 

is sacred.

This is the time 
for you
to deeply comprehend 

this sheer impossibility

that there is anything

but Grace.

Now 
is the season to know

that everything 
you do 
is 
sacred.

There could be holy fallout

These days when I don't have many words of my own...thanks, Hafez.  I run into you at just the right moments.

We are often in battle.
So often defending every side of the fort,
it may seem, all 
alone.

Sit down, my dear,
take a few deep 
breaths,
think about 
a loyal friend.

Where is your 
music,
your pet, 
a brush?

Surely one 
who has lasted as long 
as you
knows some path, 
some place inside
that can give a sweet respite.

If you cannot 
slay your panic,
then say within
as convincingly as you can,
It is all God’s will!

Now pick up your life again.
Let whatever is out there
come charging in,

Laugh 
and spit into the air,
and
there could 
be holy fallout.

Throw 
those ladders like tiny matchsticks
with just phantoms upon them
you thought were trying 
to scale your heart.

Your love has such
an eloquent sound.
The sky and I 
want to hear it!

If you still feel helpless,
give our battle cry again—

(Hafez has shouted it
 a thousand-and-one times!)

It is all,
It is all the Beloved’s will!

What is 
that luminous rain I see
all around you 
in the future,

Sweeping in from the east plain?

It looks like, 
O it looks like
Holy fallout

filling your mouth and your palms
with Joy!

In a Tree House

I'm sorry it's been a while; eventually I'll start posting again. In the meantime, I thought I'd share with you a few old, old poems by other people.

This one by the great Hafez (1315–1390) has meant a lot to me ever since I came across it a few months ago. 

Enjoy along with this lovely song by the lovely Azam Ali (just click and it'll play in another window): Noor (The Light in My Eyes).

Bristlecone Pine : Project 80

Light
will someday split you open
even if your life is now a cage.

For a divine seed, 

the crown of destiny,
is hidden and sown 

on an ancient fertile plain
you hold the title to.

Love will surely bust you wide open
into an unfettered blooming new galaxy

even if your mind is now

a spoiled mule.

A life-giving radiance will come;

bounty from the Friend will come––

O look again within yourself,
for I know you were once the elegant host
to all the marvels in creation.

Up from a sacred cleft of your body

a bow rises each night
and shoots your soul into God.

Behold the Beautiful Drunk Singing One
from the lunar vantage point of love––

He is conducting the affairs
of the whole universe

While throwing wild parties
in a tree house

on a limb in your heart.

The Inner Landscape of Beauty

Connemara tree

I first heard John O’Donohue’s voice during a profoundly dark season of my early adult life. I was sick as a dog, barely crawling through a brutal depression, and shut up in a proverbial dark night of the soul. My quest to save the world had been sharply aborted and turned upside-down by a mystery illness, and I’d been pretty much shipped back to a country I thought I no longer had a home in.
So there I was, very alone in a new state, working temporarily in a part-time office job someone had kindly offered me as I attempted to get treatment and maybe heal.

As anyone who’s suffered any kind of non-incidental depression knows, it was a crapton worse than any of the physical suffering I was trying to survive. I could barely think; I could barely pray; I could barely hear God or sense any kind of presence that was once so natural to breathe in. Every day after work, I’d drag myself outside to the forest by my house and trudge through the woods for half an hour in a desperate attempt to stay alive on the inside. Those days when spiritual books seemed full of dry, muted words, trudging through the forest was about as good a prayer as it got.

And then, one day a random newsprint catalog was being passed around the office advertising random overstock stuff sitting in some warehouse, calling our names. Did we want anything? I didn’t see anything interesting—except...there was this audiobook on cassette called Anam Cara. I had no idea what Anam Cara meant, but there were a bunch of Celtic knot designs on the cover along with a photo of what I [very mistakenly] thought looked like Stonehenge, and I admit I'm a sucker for Stonehenge (primarily because I’ve never seen it in real life, so they say). 

Soon, I was driving to the doctor or grocery store and sitting longer than necessary in parking lots, because I was listening to this voice with the distinct cadence of a native Irish-speaker speaking words to me about the soul, about God, about story, about pain, about connection…that I could actually hear and understand.

I probably listened to those tapes a zillion times. 

Since then, I’ve still yet to read a single book by John O’Donohue; I’d get the book…but then find that I just wanted to listen to him talk about all the things he was so excited and inspired and enlivened by. (Because reading big abstract words is a shifty business, but when John O'Donohue says them as he means them, they're authentic and pulsing with life.) So—my experience of his ideas has been solely based on listening to his voice on audiobook. And because of that, when I finally heard The Inner Landscape of Beauty,* Krista Tippett’s monumental 2007 On Being interview with him shortly before he passed on, I felt I was listening to a friend. (Although I’m sure everyone else did, too.)

Anyway, beauty is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. As in beauty will save the world beauty. Of course beauty draws every human being (whether or not we’re aware), but I don’t know that you look for it or recognize your need for it quite as desperately as you do when you’re in pain. Because it’s not simply a pretty landscape; it’s a landscape of power and presence that you see as it is only when your inner eye has been opened. And that landscape can be anywhere, strangely. So…this evening as I was driving home, I listened to John O’Donohue read his incredibly profound 2003 treatise on beauty for a few minutes. And suddenly, I had to shut off the stereo, because I realized I wasn’t really seeing anything, and I needed to see. And then the light hitting the leaves on the trees lining the freeway nearly pierced my heart.

This preamble is way too long, but I had to at least try to explain a little of why this one relatively short conversation/interview meant so much to me. I could be wrong, but I think it was the last time the voice of this philosopher/poet/scholar (who really stayed a priest even after he stepped away from official priesthood) was recorded. So tonight, I couldn’t help but return to it and distill a bit of his voice into another “found” poem. (Although I’m not sure you can really distill his voice.*) The strangest thing was that I couldn’t see these words without hearing them as he’d say them...I guess his voice is still uncannily present.

Again, none of these words are technically mine—only the spaces and dots and dashes. I do take full responsibility for playing with the connections between the words to create new sentences and thoughts (and any possible mis-juxtaposing that may have occurred). So if you don’t think something works, oops. But hopefully the heart of this great poet's wisdom comes through with the same refreshing voice, just in new form.


*If you've never heard it before, listen to the whole unedited interview. Absolutely worth your time.

If you love what you hear, consider purchasing for yourself Longing and Belonging, the brilliant collection of John O'Donohue's wonderful narrated books, available through his official posthumous author website. To say tit's worth every cent is an understatement! (Although, if it's too much for your budget, let me know and I may be able to suggest an alternate source for much less, depending on your country of residence.)

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The Poetry of Ordinary Time

One night when I couldn't sleep, I decided to listen to the latest On Being podcast, which was a really arresting conversation between Krista Tippett and a poet I'd never heard of, Marie Howe. There were so many words, lines, thoughts that stood out to me as I listened, and I kept thinking, I should write these down. But then they were more than just thoughts; it all sounded like a poem to me.

When I was about 19 or so, I found a book of poems in the library by the amazing Annie Dillard, who'd written a book that had recently blown me away (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, of course). Annie handled words like a cross between an athlete who performs stunning feats without a second thought [apparently] and an astronaut who sits on a thin ledge between life and death and fixes some billion dollar spaceship part with a jerryrigged toothbrush. (Okay, that sentence proves that I'm not Annie Dillard. w00t!)

My point simply being that Annie could've been putting out loads of volumes of profound, elegant poetry made of her own words if she wanted to, but instead, she put out this odd and brilliant book of "found" poems. Basically, she played around with scraps of words and phrases from the random sources she so delights in (e.g., an 1800s manual of boys' projects, a Russian hunting memoir, van Gogh's letters, the Apocrypha) and found the poetry in them. Anyway, I recalled the book and thought, Why not?

As Annie says in her Author's Note, "I did not write a word of it." In other words, Marie Howe said all of this; I merely created a collage to form a fresh image of these ideas. I might have contributed punctuation; I might not have.