My green heart We must live for God and
die for God, You said. I once thought these were
two different things. Death approaching makes
brittle my bones. Greener and suppler is my
heart. Suppleness necessary for
yielding. Death necessary for new
growth. In the Tomb, while
sitting at Your feet, a fire ravaged my house. The floor of my chest
turned to burning coals. Underneath its blackened
rafters, settled among the ash, my green heart now is
weaving a nest. Wonderful things have
sprung up: songs of praise, tears of
gratitude; attempted fidelity, an
inchoate love . . . . Why not consider yourself
already dead? You asked. This makes sense to
me. I was born in Your Tomb. O child of God, one
morning the old shell gave way to new growth and turned
your blackened heart green.
Your silence is the sound Your silence is the sound
of the heart’s surrender, the dissolution of the
ego structure, the speechless wonder of
the mind when God steps through
the door. It is the sound of a
lover’s deep gaze, a tear sliding down the
cheek; the silence of a pilgrim
sinking to his knees, after so long a journey,
before the Tomb of his Lord. O Beloved, Your sound is
the silence of the Tomb itself, closed
for the night; the silence of the
painted images on its holy, stone walls. O child of God, why speak
of silence? The Beloved speaks
eternally within the human heart.
I let You into my
heart.You produced a key to long-locked
door. It led to a cellar filled with wine. O Lord, those are my
teardrops on those dusty bottles! My tongue is too drunk to
speak properly now but I will moan for You. Moonlight pours through a
small window just above the street. Let’s drink to Hafiz – to
his outrageous love. And what of Rumi? – his
poetic, methodical breaking down of the barriers between
lover and God. O Beloved, my heart seems
so spacious when You are there, sweeping through the
house in Your flowing white gown; Your arms fluid and
graceful, Your birdlike hands making gestures for love,
grace, forgiveness, mercy. Atop Your head, Your
hands form a crown – the gesture for a king. O child of God, prepare
your heart for the day King Meher arrives in
full regalia never again to leave.
Stripped to the waist,
hair tied back, lean and sweaty, the
mandali at Your elbow as You labored to build a
fortress where thousands of Your
lovers gather to lay hearts and
flowers, but for years the work progressed
unacknowledged and even the mandali had
no idea the foundations You were
laying, the mortar, blood, sweat
and stone set within that holiest
of holy ground . . . . Planted in the hillside,
Your body growing a garden built of
solid walls, well-rooted neems and
banyans, crisscrossed paths Your
feet wore down; established by Love and
ardor to endure for as long as forever
needs to be. O child of God, He spent
a lifetime laying stones for the years to come
without His human form.
.jpg)