Roses Underfoot
If anyone asks you to say who you are,
say without hesitation, soul
within soul within soul.
There’s a pearl diver who does not know
how to swim! No matter.
Pearls are handed him on the beach.
We lovers laugh to hear, “This should be
more that and that more this,”
coming from people sitting in a wagon
tilted in a ditch.
Going in search of the heart, I found
a huge rose, and roses under all our feet!
How to say this to someone who denies it?
The robe we wear is the sky’s cloth.
Everything is soul and flowering.
~~~~~~~~~
Birdsong from Inside the Egg
Sometimes a lover of God may faint
in the presence. Then the beloved bends
and whispers in his ear, “Beggar, spread out
your robe. I’ll fill it with gold.
I’ve come to protect your consciousness.
Where has it gone? Come back!”
This fainting is because lovers want so much.
A chicken invites a camel into her henhouse,
and the whole structure is demolished.
A rabbit nestles down with its eyes closed
in the arms of a lion.
There is an excess in spiritual searching
that is profound ignorance.
Let that ignorance be our teacher!
The Friend breathes into one who has no breath.
A deep silence revives the listening
of those two who meet on the riverbank.
Like the ground turning green in a spring wind,
like birdsong beginning inside the egg,
like this universe coming into existence,
the lover wakes and whirls in a dancing joy,
then kneels down in praise.
~~~~~~~~~~
From Rumi – The Book of Love: Poems of Ecstasy and Longing
Translations by Coleman Barks
with John Moyne, Nevit Ergin, A.J. Arberry, Reynold Nicholson, and M.G. Gupta
Vintage floral textile: https://www.pictureboxblue.com/vintage-floral-pattern-designs/
Photo: Bobolink Eggs in Nest by Carolyn Myers https://madisonaudubon.org/fff/2020/8/14/bobolink
