Spring by Rumi

Again, the violet bows to the lily.
Again, the rose is tearing off her gown!

The green ones have come from the other world,
tipsy like the breeze up to some new foolishness.

Again, near the top of the mountain
the anemone’s sweet features appear.

The hyacinth speaks formally to the jasmine,
“Peace be with you.” “And peace to you, lad!
Come walk with me in this meadow.”

Again, there are sufis everywhere!

The bud is shy, but the wind removes
her veil suddenly, “My friend!”

The Friend is here like water in the stream,
like a lotus on the water.

The narcissus winks at the wisteria,
“Whenever you say.”

And the clove to the willow, “You are the one
I hope for.” The willow replies, “Consider
these chambers of mine yours. Welcome!”

The apple, “Orange, why the frown?”
“So that those who mean harm
will not see my beauty.”

The ringdove comes asking, “Where,
where is the Friend?”

With one note the nightingale
indicates the rose.

Again, the season of Spring has come
and a spring-source rises under everything,
a moon sliding from the shadows.

Many things must be left unsaid, because it’s late,
but whatever conversation we haven’t had
tonight, we’ll have tomorrow.

(translation by Coleman Barks)

What Good is a Book of Poems? by Hafez

What good is a book of poems if you are
reading it while riding

in the back of a wagon that is heading toward
the edge of a cliff?

A greater awareness is what our relationship
is supposed to be about.

I was hoping something I might have said by
now could have made you stop, get your bearings,

and start traveling in a direction that will yield
lots of fruit. May be you are? That would be nice.

A Year with Hafiz- Daily Contemplations - Daniel Landinsky

What to Remember When Waking by David Whyte

What to Remember When Waking

by David Whyte

In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake,

coming back to this life from the other

more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world

where everything began,

there is a small opening into the new day

which closes the moment you begin your plans.

What you can plan is too small for you to live.

What you can live wholeheartedly will make plans enough

for the vitality hidden in your sleep.

To be human is to become visible

while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others.

To remember the other world in this world

is to live in your true inheritance.

You are not a troubled guest on this earth,

you are not an accident amidst other accidents

you were invited from another and greater night

than the one from which you have just emerged.

Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window

toward the mountain presence of everything that can be

what urgency calls you to your one love?

What shape waits in the seed of you

to grow and spread its branches

against a future sky?

Is it waiting in the fertile sea?

In the trees beyond the house?

In the life you can imagine for yourself?

In the open and lovely white page on the writing desk?

from The House of Belonging, Many Rivers Press

Crossing a Creek by Martha Courtot

crossing a creek

requires 3 things:

a certain serenity of mind

bare feet,

and a sure trust

that the snake we know

slides silently

underwater

just beyond our vision

will choose to ignore

the flesh

that cuts through

its territory

and we will pass through

some people think crossing a creek

is easy,

but I say this—

all crossings are hard,

whether creeks, mountains,

or into other lives

and we must always believe

in the snakes at our feet

just out of our vision

and we must practice believing

we will come through.