Abandoned houses

Abandoned houses
 
Tonight my heart’s fire rages; nothing to do
but throw myself in the river flowing at my Beloved’s feet.
 
Once, I drifted free as a ghost.  Now I am rooted in holy soil
like the neems and banyons on the path to my Beloved’s door.
 
Under a dormant sky, the restless ocean heaves and sighs.
How can the gulls, darting here and there, ever fathom its depths?
 
Windows of a long-shuttered room have been thrown open –
to fresh air and sunlight, music and laughter.
 
Important people of the world, sleep on – moving about
in your dreams; jabbing the air with your fingers.
 
The mandali are giving out holy prasad.  Those old bodies
remind me of abandoned houses the winds blow through.
 
O child of God, your heart resides within His heart;
wherever your willfulness leads, remember, the Beloved
          goes with you.

My green heart

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
 
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.

Outrageous love

Outrageous love                                                                                                      

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. 

A fortress

A fortress                                                                                          

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.

 

His majesty

His majesty

Once an infidel, Your love evoked fidelity,
faithful now, not to God, but to a human being
 
Who walked the path Jesus walked,
          all the way to Golgotha.
But more intimate than that --
 
faithful to the One Who poured the wine
          into my cup;
Who rested His hand on my shoulder;
 
Who gestured tenderly, “You belong to Me.”
I can’t reach beyond that form and personality.
 
It’s self-serving and calculated -- I want to be You;
filled with Your Essence until nothing else remains.
 
O child of God, the Avatar is made of flesh and blood;
therein lies His majesty.

The dark-red goblet

The dark-red goblet
 
This morning the wells at Meherabad overflowed,
threatening to drown all inhabitants.
 
My little boat was swamped by a great wave.
Can my heartsong be heard above the ocean’s roar?
 
When the truth of His rain reaches our ears,
we’ll be drenched, o pilgrims, inside and out.
 
The Beloved is pouring His wine!
Offer the dark-red goblet of your heart.
 
Nothing to cling to; nowhere to go
but down into the vasty blue depths.
 
O child of God, drown in the Ocean of Love,
leaving not a trace of yourself on this rugged, illusory shore.

Love tokens

Love Tokens

O child of God, your heart is a flower,
sometimes open, sometimes not.

Once again, the Sun walked the earth,
mankind ignoring the Light in its midst.

In twilight now, the stars peek out
and a moon of purest silver.

Sing, o nightingale, for me.  I've lost my voice.
The Rose is silent, also, for reasons of Its own.

How could I have known, o Beloved, Your language?
Or what love tokens You would accept.

I was a stranger in Your court.
You threw open the doors of Your treasure house.

Eventually, this old heart will collapse upon itself.
In the ruins, someOne may build a fire.

O child of God, burnt by desire for union;
rejoice the day you come home - your whole house in flames!

Your wine has the power

Your wine has the power
 
Your wine has the power to obliterate my world.
Yet subtle and delicious is Your wine.
 
Tonight, my chest is soaked red from the heart’s goblet
that tilts and spills whenever You draw near.
 
Have You come in response to my morning prayers?
Or to my wailing and weeping in middle of the night?
 
Or have You come of Your own accord,
to work with the clay You find?
 
It doesn’t matter.  You’re here now.
Take liberties with me while I’m drunk and helpless.
 
Fashion me into a deeper vessel, o Lord,
then fill my throat with Your wine until I drown.
 
Let me go out of this world oblivious to everything
but Your stranglehold, Your blade lodged between my ribs.
 
Fear not, child of God, once True Love comes to the door
obliteration is the only possible result.