Rumi's Caravan

DRUNK ON LOVE Last night, full of longing asking the wine woman for more and then more.... She teased me so lovingly I fell into her and disappeared. Then she was there alone. In the wineshop, I drank a little wine and threw off the robe of this body. I knew, drunk on love, this world is harmony creation, destruction. I am dancing for them both. - Rumi

THE ZEN OF HOUSEWORK I look over my own shoulder down my arms to where they disappear under water... into hands inside pink rubber gloves moiling among dinner dishes. My hands lift a wine glass, holding it by the stem and under the bowl. It breaks the surface like a chalice rising from a medieval lake. Full of the grey wine of domesticity, the glass floats to the level of my eyes. Behind it, through the window above the sink, the sun, among a ceremony of sparrows and bare branches, is setting in Western America. I can see thousands of droplets of steam -- each a tiny spectrum -- rising from my goblet of grey wine. They sway, changing directions constantly -- like a school of playful fish, or like the sheer curtain on the window to another world. Ah, grey sacrament of the mundane! ~ Al Zolynas

FALL SONG Another year gone, leaving everywhere its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,... the uneaten fruits crumbling damply in the shadows, unmattering back from the particular island of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere except underfoot, moldering in that black subterranean castle of unobservable mysteries - roots and sealed seeds and the wanderings of water. This I try to remember when time's measure painfully chafes, for instance when autumn flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing to stay - how everything lives, shifting from one bright vision to another, forever in these momentary pastures. - Mary Oliver

IN THE ARC OF YOUR MALLET Don’t go anywhere without me. Let nothing happen in the sky apart from me, or on the ground, in this world or that world,... without my being in its happening. Vision, see nothing I don’t see. Language, say nothing. The way the night knows itself with the moon, be that with me. Be the rose nearest to the thorn that I am. I want to feel myself in you when you taste food, in the arc of your mallet when you work, when you visit friends, when you go up on the roof by yourself at night. There’s nothing worse than to walk out along the street without you. I don’t know where I’m going. You’re the road, and the knower of roads, more than maps, more than love. - Rumi Image - Nicole Schmidt

MY MIND WAS A MIRROR My mind was a mirror: It saw what it saw, it knew what it knew. In youth my mind was just a mirror... In a rapidly flying car, Which catches and loses bits of the landscape. Then in time Great scratches were made on the mirror, Letting the outside world come in, And letting my inner self look out. For this is the birth of the soul in sorrow, A birth with gains and losses. The mind sees the world as a thing apart, And the soul makes the world at one with itself. A mirror scratched reflects no image And this is the silence of wisdom. ~ Ernest Hyde

WRITING WHAT I'VE SEEN All things that live must make a living. There's nothing got... without some getting. From fabled beast to feeble bug each schemes to make its way. The Buddha, or the Taoist sage? Unending in his labor; and morning's herald, the rooster, too can he not cock-a-doodle-do? I hunger, so I plot to eat; I'm cold, and would be robed.... But great grand schemes will get you grief. Take what you need, that's all. A light craft takes the wind and skims the water lightly. ~ Yuan Mei

NOTHING'S A GIFT Nothing's a gift, it's all on loan. I'm drowning in debts up to my ears. I'll have to pay for myself... with my self, give up my life for my life. Here's how it's arranged: The heart can be repossessed, the liver, too, and each single finger and toe. Too late to tear up the terms, my debts will be repaid, and I'll be fleeced, or, more precisely, flayed. I move about the planet in a crush of other debtors. some are saddled with the burden of paying off their wings. Others must, willy-nilly, account for every leaf. Every tissue in us lies on the debit side. Not a tenacle or tendril is for keeps. The inventory, infinitely detailed, implies we'll be left not just empty-handed but handless too. I can't remember where, when, and why I let someone open this account in my name. We call the protest against this the soul. And it's the only item not included on the list. ~ Wislawa Szymborska

WHAT WOULD RUMI DO IN A PANDEMIC? A Conversation with Omid Safi, professor of Islamic studies at Duke University. 'We’re meant to be in communion with other beings. Rumi says, You and I should live as if you and I never heard of a you and an I.'... https://www.vox.com//rumi-sufism-muslim-pandemic-isolation

SOMEONE UNTIED YOUR CAMEL I cannot sit still with my countrymen in chains. I cannot act mute Hearing the world's loneliness... Crying near the Beloved's heart. My love for God is such That I could dance with Him tonight without you, But I would rather have you there. Is your caravan lost? It is, If you no longer weep from gratitude or happiness, Or weep From being cut deep with the awareness Of the extraordinary beauty That emanates from the most simple act And common object. My dear, is your caravan lost? It is if you can no longer be kind to yourself And loving to those who must live With the sometimes difficult task of loving you. At least come to know That someone untied your camel last night For I hear its gentle voice Calling for God in the desert. At least come to know That Hafiz will always hold a lantern With the galaxies blooming inside And that I will always guide your soul to The divine warmth and exhilaration Of our Beloved's Tent. ~ Hafiz

SPEECH TO THE YOUNG. SPEECH TO THE PROGRESS-TOWARD. Say to them, say to the down-keepers,... the sun-slappers, the self-soilers, the harmony-hushers, Even if you are not ready for day it cannot always be night. You will be right. For that is the hard home-run. Live not for battles won. Live not for The-End-of-the-Song. Live in the along. ~ Gwendolyn Brooks

STILL I RISE You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies,... You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries? Does my haughtiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard ’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines Diggin’ in my own backyard. You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise. Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise. - Maya Angelou

COME, COME, WHOEVER YOU ARE Rumi's Caravan has recorded a virtual performance that is now available to watch on Youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MasonRAIlak... Come, come - wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Even if you have broken your vow a thousand times, come, come yet again, come. - Rumi