A lover has four streams inside:
     water, wine, honey and milk.

Find those in our yourself, and pay no attention
     to what others may say.

The rose does not care if someone calls it a thorn,
     or jasmine.

Ordinary eyes categorize human beings.

Walk instead with the other vision given you,
     your first eyes.

Do not squint , and
     do not stare blankly like a vulture.

If you are in love with the infinite,
     why grieve over earth washing away in the rain?

Bow to the essence of a human being.

A battlefield drinks war-blood,
     but, if it knew this secret, springs would rise.

Do not be content with judging people good and bad.
     Grow out of that.

The great blessing arises from the ground on which we stand.

That strength lets us wait and trust the waiting.

What is the light in the center of the darkness
     in your soul.  A royal radiance 
           or a fantasy like the way the full moon
                comes up sometimes in the daytime?

Humans cannot endure such clarity.
      We make statues, apply paint
           and use words with hidden illusions.

When the eye turns to look somewhere else,
      what does it see?

An east wind bringing infinitesimal dust
     from the desert is the most I expect.

Some other time, man or woman, traveler,
     later, when I am not alive,
          look here, look for me
               between stone and ocean,
                    in the light storming
                         through the foam.

Look here, look for me,
      for here I will return, without saying a thing,
           without voice, without mouth, pure,
                here I will return to be the churning
                     of the water, of
                          its unbroken heart,
                               here, I will be discovered and lost:
                                    here, I will, perhaps, be stone and silence.

These stones are not sad.

Within them lives gold,
     they have the seeds of planets,
           they have bells in their depths,
                 gloves of iron, marriages
                      of time with the amethysts:
                           on the inside laughing with rubies,
                                nourishing themselves from lightning.

Because of this, traveler, pay attention
     to the hardships of the road,
          to mysteries on the walls.

I know this at great cost,
      that all life is not outward
           not all death within,
                and that the age writes letters
                     with water and stone for no one,
                           so that no one knows,
                                so that no one understands anything.

I grew up drenched in natural waters
     like the mollusk in the phosphorous sea.

In me, the crusty salt resounded
     and formed my singular skeleton.

How to explain -- almost without
     the blue and bitter rhythm of breathing,
          one by one the waves repeated
               what I sensed and trembled with
                    until salt and spray formed me.

The wave's rejection and desire,
     the green rhythm which at its most secret
          raised up a transparent tower.

It kept that secret, and all at once
     I felt that I was beating with it,
          that my song was growing with the water.

Eventually, I want to live across the sea.

My home built in a magical place,

     with continuous winds and salt waves,

         my eyes viewing Eden's beauty.

Wondrous the sun’s extravagance,

     the palm trees ample green,

          backed by a forest of flowers and fruits,

               on the edge of a sea harder than a blue stone.

Under a sky newly painted every day,

     with the delicate boat of one drifting cloud.

Suddenly, an occasional absurd gathering.

     rumbling thunder and water falling in cataracts,

          a hiss of anger —

               a monsoon exploding overhead…

          

Then…quiet... sunlight revealing the beauty

     of rain soaked land, and the drip

         of pure gold reflecting in the sun.

                                 -- after Pablo Nuerda

Stay together friends;
     Don't scatter and sleep.

Our friendship is made of
     being awake.

The waterwheel accepts water
     and, turns and gives it away,
          weeping.

That way it stays in the garden
     whereas another roundness rolls
          through a dry riverbed looking
               for what it thinks it wants.

Stay here, quivering with each moment,
     like a drop of mercury.


                                    -- Rumi

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

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


                                            - Rumi

A Morning Meditation

The rata-tat-tat of falling raindrops rising to a crescendo as the rain paints the metal roof;

Trickles, now, streams of water cascade down the windows forming puddles, lakes then miniature rivers flowing to the underworld and to the seas unseen;

Thunder, faintly grumbling in the distance, sharply contrasted as sheet lightning briefly brightens the darken, cloud swept skies, and, highlight the mountains that grasp and cling to the tumbling clouds;

Ever so intimately, like a young girl briefly sharing her face beneath a veil, the clouds open, revealing a bright star-lit sky far beyond the reaches of this earth-borne storm;

Slight whispers of rain-cleansed wind ruffle shades of the opened windows, bringing the scent of rain-soaked new life; occasional gusts rock the home reminding me of sleeping on a sailboat as the tides and currents teased it at its mooring;

The dimly-lit, shrouded sun struggles to pierce the heavy, rain-swollen clouds; a new day awakens, and the cycle of life begins anew.