I am in Love -- Rumi

I am in Love!

All this advice?

What's the use?

I have drunk poison.

All this sugar?

What's the use?

You say hurry,

Tie up his feet.

But it's my heart that's gone crazy,

All this rope?

What's the use?

--Rumi

In a Dark Time

In a dark time, the eye begins to see

I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;

I hear my echo in the echoing wood--

A lord of nature weeping to a tree,

I live between the heron and the wren,

Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.

What's madness but nobility of soul

At odds with circumstance?  The day's on fire!

I know the purity of pure despair,

My shadow pinned against a sweating wall,

That place among the rocks -- is it a cave,

Or winding path?  The edge is what I have.

A steady storm of correspondences!

A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,

And in broad day the midnight come again!

A man goes far to find out what he is --

Death of the self in a long, tearless night,

All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.

Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.

My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,

Keeps buzzing at the sill.  Which I is I?

A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.

The mind enters itself, and God the mind

And one is One, free in the tearing wind.

--Theodore Roethke

You're the One

Nature gives us shapeless shapes

Clouds and waves and flame

But human expectation

Is that love remains the same

And when it doesn't

We point our fingers

And blame, blame, blame.

--Paul Simon

Edmund Pollard

I would I had thrust my hands of flesh

Into the disk flowers, bee-infested,

Into the mirror-like core of fire

Of the light of life, the sun of delight.

For what are anthers worth, or petals

Or halo-rays?  Mockeries, shadows

Of the heart of the flower, the central flame!

All is yours, young passer-by;

Enter the banquet room with the thought;

Don't sidle in as if you were doubtful

Whether you're welcome -- the feast is yours!

Nor take but a little, refusing more

With a bashful "Thank you" when you're hungry.

Is your soul alive?  Then let it feet!

Leave no balconies where you can climb;

Nor milk-white bosoms where you can rest;

Nor golden heads with pillows to share;

Nor wine cups while the wine is sweet;

Nor ecstasies of body or soul.

You will die, no doubt, but die while living

In depths of azure, rapt and mated,

Kissing the queen-bee, Life!

--Edgar Lee Masters

Unanswered Prayers

Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers

Remember when you're talking to the man upstairs

Just because he doesn't answer doesn't mean he don't care

Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.

--Garth Brooks

Speak Less to the One You Love

If they cannot understand your silence

They will never understand your words.

--Unknown

On Stripping Bark from Myself (For Jane, Who Said Trees Die From It)

Because women are expected to keep silent about

Their close escapes, I will not keep silent

And if I am destroyed (naked tree!) someone will please

Mark the spot where I fall and know I could not live

Silent in my own lies

Hearing their "how nice she is!"

Whose adoration of the retouched image

I so despise.

No.  I am finished with living

For what my mother believes

For what my father and brother defend

For what my lover elevates

For what my sister, blushing, denies or rushes to embrace.

I find my own

Small person

A standing self

Against the world; an equality of wills

I finally understand.

Besides:

My struggle was always against

An inner darkness: I carry within myself

The only known keys

To my death -- to unlock life, or close it shut forever.

A woman who loves wood grains, the color yellow

And the sun, I am happy to fight

All outside murderers

As I see I must.

--Alice Walker