Beautiful souls
You bathed the feet of
lepers,
rinsing away centuries of
accumulated dirt.
Then You touched Your
holy forehead
to their distended
stumps.
Beautiful souls in ugly
cages, You called them.
Only You could see their
true beauty.
In the years I have been
with you, Lord,
parts of me have
atrophied and fallen away.
Through the eyes of the
world,
I now seem disfigured;
crippled and useless.
I am a beggar at Your
door, desperate to remain
in Your good graces.
I am slowly dying, one
appurtenance at a time.
O Beloved, let the
beautiful flame of a bird within me
sing fervently among
these ruins!
Let me serenade You as
the cage that entraps me
cracks and rusts away.
O child of God, rejoice
within your ugly cage.
Your Beloved is
that beautiful bird that flares and sings
brightly within you.
Your brush strokes
Tonight, as these prayers
are being said,
looking out upon the
bowed heads of Your lovers,
in my heart, also, heads
are bowed.
Voices blending in arti;
there are voices
and harmonies within me as well.
And, as I kneel for Your
darshan,
in the tomb-shrine of my
heart, there is, also, a kneeling.
On this nondescript hill,
a small group of Your lovers
has gathered tonight from
around the world.
We have come to bow down
to the holiest part within us
and all human beings.
What a long journey to
reach this humble abode!
O Beloved, in Your
Tomb-Shrine I have found my refuge.
In the shrine of my
heart, let me offer You refuge.
Paint the walls within it
in Your lovely brush strokes,
scenes from a life of
purity and holy Love.
O child of God, garland
the stone of your heart-shrine.
Prepare it lovingly for
the arrival of the Guest.
Bread and wine
O Beloved, speak to me
now.
Your words have become my
bread.
Pour the wine.
I am Your son and I
thirst.
The river is flowing,
inside and out, and I am bewildered.
Soothe me with Your
fingertips and fragrant rose-balm.
My restless heart wounds
itself on the ribs of its cage.
Offer the silence and
stillness of quenched desire.
I asked for words and
received Your haunting melody
and a wine-soaked poem
that won’t translate
into any language.
Your voice sounds in the
dark confines of the human heart.
Wine spills from its
trembling vessel and drowns my thirst.
O child of God, rejoice
in the wordless poetry of your Beloved;
the bread and wine that
draws you each moment ever closer to Him.
Life’s accumulations
O Beloved, the
intellectuals among us
probe Your every word,
seeking hidden compartments.
I wish them well.
For many years I tried
soaking up the Ocean through
the sponge of my brain.
Now I’m afraid Your wine
has seriously impaired
my cerebral abilities.
Spouting ingenious
theories of God and man,
Your wave rolled in and
left me gasping for air.
What’s a few consonants
strung with vowels,
when the Ocean floods the
lowlands and carries Your life’s
accumulations out to sea?
Where is sure footing in
fathomless water?
Which directions matter
when all I see is Ocean?
What is there to do now
but float face up and wonder
what You have in mind for
the rest of my life?
O child of God, words of
the Avatar are like bread to his lovers
but it’s the Master’s
wine that soaks you head to foot.
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