I've never thanked the air ...

I've never thanked the air for being there.
I've never thanked the sun.
But I have breathed and I have bathed
as much as anyone.

And I have soared and I have viewed
the world from such a height
that even angels fear to fall
(and even angels might).

And I have sailed or have been blown
so far across the sea
that I am now no longer sure
who's traveling with me.

But still this air and still this sun
and still ourselves as well,
will breathe and bathe and nothing more,
and only time will tell.

There are things in life ...

There are things in life
that you destroy by putting into words.

Like the flower you find in the forest
and do not bring home with you:

Even though,
in the glory of its final hours,
it would lend credibility to your story,
you leave it alone.

Even though
you are sure that no one else
would venture as deep into the same woods,
you leave it alone.

Even though
you feel that you may never again
find its equal,
you leave it alone.

You do all of this
because there are things in life
that must be lived.

And the living of them
is as important to these things
as your decent into the woods
is to the flower you find.

These things cannot be experienced any other way. Those who understand this also understand this other truth: that there never would have even been a flower except that someone looked for one.

Balloons!

Driving in to work this morning, I watched the balloons rise with the sun. I should say, rather, that I enjoyed the thought of them rising. We think of things like these rising, but our eyes tell a different story than our minds. It occurred to me then that if I ever wanted someone else to know what it was like to dance, really dance - and I mean someone who is not a dancer, fundamentally - I would take them up in a balloon. There, surrounded by the cool, clear air, we would watch the landscape spread out beneath us, and, even if our problems were the size of a house, we would watch them recede into the distance until they could be covered by a single hand. There, we would soak up the energy that comes with elevation and, as we descended again, we would know that we were carrying back with us something beautiful, something precious, something that had accepted its smallness and its impermanence as prerequisites for something greater than itself.

Maestro

You are the stone
thrown into the pond,
the soil spread over the seeds,
the clouds building on the horizon.

As you withdraw from the surface,
you will not know of the waves
you have created,
but they will be there.

As you are absorbed,
you will not know of the branches
that stretch toward the sky,
but they will be there.

As your tears fall
through the silent air,
you will not know
of the desert below
or of its thirst,
but they will be there.

And as the pond
becomes still again,
as the stone and the sky
are united in its reflection,
as they sit down in the shade,
as they begin to drink,
they will know
it was you.

Bacon Grease

Bacon grease always seemed the happiest to me in a hot pan. I remember my mother pouring the bacon grease into a jar after the bacon was done cooking. Finding a place for it in the fridge. I imagine that bacon grease now: too cold to flow, waiting to be used, wanting to be used, eager to find out what it would become when it was returned to the pan.

Notes from the Essential Rumi (Translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne)

ACTS OF HELPLESSNESS

Here are the miracle-signs you want: that
you cry through the night and get up at dawn, asking,
that in the absence of what you ask for your day gets dark,
your neck thin as a spindle, that what you give away
is all you own, that you sacrifice belongings,
sleep, health, your head, that you often
sit down in a fire like aloes wood, and often go out
to meet a blade like a battered helmet.

When acts of helplessness become habitual,
those are the signs.

But you run back and forth listening for unusual events,
peering into the faces of travelers.
"Why are you looking at me like a madman?"
I have lost a friend. Please forgive me.

Searching like that does not fail.
There will come a rider who holds you close.
You faint and gibber. The uninitiated say, "He's faking."
How could they know?
Water washes over a beached fish, the water
of those signs I just mentioned.

Excuse my wandering.
How can one be orderly with this?
It's like counting leaves in a garden,
along with the song-notes of partridges and crows.

Sometimes organization
and computation become absurd.


From ONLY BREATH

There is a way between voice and presence
where information flows.

In disciplined silence it opens.
With wandering talk it closes.


From A GREAT WAGON

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.


From SEXUAL URGENCY, WHAT A WOMAN'S LAUGHTER CAN DO, AND THE NATURE OF TRUE VIRILITY

When the captain sees her, he falls in love
like the Caliph. Don't laugh at this.
This loving is also part of infinite love,
without which the world does not evolve.
Objects move from inorganic to vegetation
to selves endowed with spirit through the urgency
of every love that wants to come to perfection.


From MUHAMMAD AND THE HUGE EATER

This rain-weeping and sun-burning twine together
to make us grow. Keep your intelligence white-hot
and your grief glistening, so your life will stay fresh.
Cry easily like a little child.


CONSTANT CONVERSATION

Who is luckiest in this whole orchestra? The reed.
Its mouth touches your lips to learn music.
All reeds, sugarcane especially, think only
of this chance. They sway in the canebrakes,
free in the many ways they dance.

Without you the instruments would die.
One sits close beside you. Another takes a long kiss.
The tambourine begs, Touch my skin so I can be myself.
Let me feel you enter each limb bone by bone,
that what died last night can be whole today.

Why live some soberer way and feel you ebbing out?
I won't do it.
Either give me enough wine or leave me alone,
now that I know how it is
to be with you in constant conversation.


From MUSIC MASTER

When I am with you, we stay up all night.
When you're not here, I can't go to sleep.

Praise God for these two insomnias!
And the difference between them.


From THE PHRASING MUST CHANGE

When one is united to the core of another, to speak of that
is to breathe the name Hu, empty of self and filled
with love. As the saying goes, The pot drips what is in it.
The saffron spice of connecting, laughter.
The onion smell of separation, crying.
Others have many things and people they love.
That is not the way of Friend and friend.


THE CORE OF MASCULINITY

The core of masculinity does not derive
from being male,
nor friendliness from those who console.

Your old grandmother says, "Maybe you shouldn't
go to school. You look a little pale."

Run when you hear that.
A father's stern slaps are better.

Your bodily soul wants comforting.
The severe father wants spiritual clarity.

He scolds but eventually
leads you into the open.

Pray for a tough instructor
to hear and act and stay within you.

We have been busy accumulating solace.
Make us afraid of how we were.


From CHINESE ART AND GREEK ART

In your light I learn how to love.
In your beauty, how to make poems.

You dance inside my chest,
where no one sees you,

but sometimes I do,
and that sight becomes this art.


From WE THREE

I am filled with you.
Skin, blood, bone, brain, and soul.
There's no room for lack of trust, or trust.
Nothing in this existence but that existence.


From THE MOUSE AND THE CAMEL

Your loving doesn't know its majesty,
until it knows its helplessness.


STORY WATER

A story is like water
that you heat for your bath.

It takes messages between the fire
and your skin. It lets them meet,
and it cleans you!

Very few can sit down
in the middle of fire itself
like a salamander or Abraham.
We need intermediates.

A feeling of fullness comes,
but usually it takes some bread
to bring it.

Beauty surrounds us,
but usually we need to be walking
in a garden to know it.

The body itself is a screen
to shield and partially reveal
the light that's blazing
inside your presence.

Water, stories, the body,
all the things we do, are mediums
that hide and show what's hidden.

Study them,
and enjoy this being washed
with a secret we sometimes know,
and then not.


From BREADMAKING

the way you make love is the way
God will be with you.


SOLOMON'S CROOKED CROWN

Solomon was busy judging others,
when it was his personal thoughts
that were disrupting the community.

His crown slid crooked on his head.
He put it straight, but the crown went
awry again. Eight times this happened.

Finally he began to talk to his headpiece.
"Why do you keep tilting over my eyes?"

"I have to. When your power loses compassion,
I have to show what such a condition looks like."

Immediately Solomon recognized the truth.
He knelt and asked forgiveness.
The crown centered itself on his crown.

When something goes wrong, accuse yourself first.
Even the wisdom of Plato or Solomon
can wobble and go blind.

Listen when your crown reminds you
of what makes you cold toward others,
as you pamper the greedy energy inside.


From THE THREE BROTHERS AND THE CHINESE PRINCESS

The beloved
is in your veins though he or she may seem
to have a form outside you.


THIS WE HAVE NOW

This we have now
is not imagination.

This is not
grief or joy.

Not a judging state,
or an elation,
or sadness.

Those come
and go.

This is the presence
that doesn't.

It's dawn, Husam,
here in the splendor of coral,
inside the Friend, the simple truth
of what Hallaj said.

What else could human beings want?

When grapes turn to wine,
they're wanting
this.

When the nightsky pours by,
it's really a crowd of beggars,
and they all want some of this!

This
that we are now
created the body, cell by cell,
like bees building a honeycomb.

The human body and the universe
grew from this, not this
from the universe and the human body.


From DANCE IN YOUR BLOOD

Dance, when you're broken open.
Dance, if you've torn the bandage off.
Dance in the middle of the fighting.
Dance in your blood.
Dance, when you're perfectly free.

I Am My Own

I am god and goddess, the bottle of wine and the empty glass, the musician, the instrument, and the music, the dancer and the dance, the one who asks and the one who answers, the one who laughs and the one who cries.

I am the earth, the air, the fire, the water, the sun, and the moon. I am day breaking and night falling. I am what sooths and burns, creates and destroys. I am heaven and hell, everything and nothing.

I am my own beginning,
I am my own end,
I am my own.

This is what it is to dance ...

Do you see these poems
we're writing on the floor?

In and through the air
above the floor?

Do you see how our feet
chase each other like animals?

For a while we are polar bear and arctic fox,
then one thousand cranes flying in formation,
then two horses in an open field.

This is what it is
to be born, to live, and to die,
in the span of a few minutes.

This is what it is to dance.

What do you want?

Someone asked:

     What do you want
     from these images?

     What do you want
     from these things that you write?

     What do you want
     from these dances?

This is the same as asking:

     What do you want
     from your eyes?

     What do you want
     from your pen and your paper?

     What do you want
     from your body?

I want from my eyes that which lies in front of me in this world. I want from my pen and my paper that which lies in front of me in this other world. I want from my body that which does not lie in front of me either in this world or in this other world. I want to know: what am I? Not who. Not why. I want to know: what are we? And I have seen enough to know that with polish and with time, these mirrors will give me the answers.

Coming and Going

1.

Run to the bow when you leave, my dear friend, run to the bow. The stern is no place for you and, anyway, you will not find me there. Run to the bow, where the world and I are waiting.

2.

When I leave with the evening, do not despair, my dear friend. Do not linger in the sand. Turn around, as if no time has passed, and welcome me with the morning.

3.

The first to understand that the world is round, that coming and going are like two ends of the same string, was a man (was it a man?) watching his dear friend disappear over the horizon.

4.

Someone closed my window into the other world. Closed my window and drew the curtains. Only shadows present themselves now. Shadows dancing on the curtains covering my window into the other world.

5.

Can a second be stretched into a minute? A minute into the time between two shadows? The time between two shadows into the time between two evenings? The time between two evenings into the time between full moons? For one second a few minutes ago, I did not miss the moon. I did not wonder where it was. I wondered only what it would be like to become full, become new, and become full again.

6.

When one teacher leaves, another arrives. There is no delay. One is never without a teacher. Presence is such a teacher, but so is absence. Presence teaches you to be full, while absence teaches you to be empty. Fullness opens a window into the other world, while emptiness places a mirror in front of you.

All I ask ...

All I ask is that you do me this favor:
do not come any closer.

Retain that perfect distance
wherein I may discern your figure,
but not your features.

That perfect distance
wherein I can hear you,
but you cannot hear me.

Do me
this favor,
this small favor,
this simple favor,

and you and I may remain
as we are forever.

Come any closer,
and we may lose everything.

Symphony No. 7

The clouds formed
with the first movement,
darkened with the second,
and advanced in a line
with the third
and forth.

They followed
as I drove home,
as I opened the door,
as I slipped under the covers.

They hovered
as I closed my eyes,
as I played the notes again in my mind,
as I came to these questions:

Which is more of a man:
the one looking down from the top
or the one looking up from the bottom?

Who is this woman
in the music?

Who is the impostor:
the one standing next to her
or the one next to whom she stands?

With these,
I heard the first few drops
and then the rain came in waves
as everything that had accumulated
emptied itself into the streets.

We take that which is ...

We take that which is beautiful
to be true,
that which is beautiful,
but not true,
to be excusable,
that which is ugly
to be false,
that which is ugly,
but not false,
to be ordinary.

We take what we have for granted
and we take what we do not have ...

we take what we do not have.

Those few who give
are drained
and those many who take
are never satisfied.

What do we do, then?

We give
only to those who give
and we never take ...

we never take.

A Thousand Eyes

A thousand eyes come to rest
in arabesque pechée,
phalanges,
metatarsi,
tarsi,
tibia and fibula,
femur,
ascending
from crypts to spires,
stones from
Figueres and Vilafranca,
Lleida,
Montjuïc,
Garraf,
one on top of another.

Do they know they're the same:
the dancer and the mason,
the choreographer and the architect?

Which of them can understand
the thousand tears?

Which of us can still see the beauty
in something we hold so close?

Barefoot across Burning Coals

I don't believe for a second
that people walk barefoot across burning coals
and reach the other side unscathed.

I've never done anything of the sort,
but I imagine it would go something like this:

I would begin.
It doesn't matter how.
I would step on the ash
and avoid the coals.

Simple.

I would soon realize,
however, that the ash was hot too
and the coals were unavoidable.

In the midst of the searing pain,
I would need a new strategy.

It would be this:

At the risk of losing my feet
up to the ankles,
leaving cauterized stumps in their places,
I would make it to the other end.

And if I stumbled,
at the risk of losing my hands
up to the wrists,
I would make it to the other end.

And if someone then asked me
how I did it,
I would respond,
jumping up and down on two stumps and
waving the other two in the air:

I decided to.

Lost

"I thought I'd lost you,"
said the earth.

"Where would I go?"
replied the air.

"The moon could not hold me
and the sun would only use me."

"No, I could not go."

"Perhaps you mistook the wind
for my departure."

Maple Leaves Blushing

maple leaves blushing,
landing alone on a liquid landscape,
rushing,
converging within the outstretched arms
of a mill at the end of the run,

(even Feynman moved in only one direction)

blown over by the wind they once embraced,
turning faster and more uselessly
than ever before,

maple leaves trailing in their wake,
facing each other as if to say,
as they descend:

"... your satin robes are softer than mine,
your branching veins more perfect,
your gradients more subtle ..."

forward and forward,
up Escher's stairs,
endlessly

moving forward, turning corners,
moving forward, turning corners,
moving forward, turning corners,

but never ascending.