Under this rainbow, slurs and missiles may volley.... but the beauty of nature has no borders, claims no race, religion, creed, or gender. In fact, nature claims no morality, because it IS morality. And in this case, we all stopped to remember that we are part of nature.

Love is a steady wind 

that erases what we know of it 

as soon as we try to grasp.  

It is pre-eternal wisdom, 

named by God, 

whispered only in the heart.

A feather softly landed. 

Let it lie.

Ti’s an attribute of another name.

Eternal light,

Not intermittent flame.

When called through lips

A sound, a kiss became.

When a breath says “love”

It’s lost to winds,

Only to land

if it flies without words again.

Of this fierce glow 

that Love and You

Within my breast inspire,

The Sun is but a spark that flew

And set the heavens afire"

What They Say

It's not always what we say with these lips...

I am just one wave in the ocean that tumbles and fades on your shores

my true love is the tide that retrieves me and bades me, "return, come again, try again."

What is truth

What is truth,
but a silent look of acknowledgement,

between a source that knows its destination
and a destination that knows its source.

Oceans and rivers call to one another
One awaiting completion, the other fulfillment.

The reed flute and the reed bed
Exchange sigh for silence and suffer the scythe.

The eyes are mirrors
For the modest soul behind them,

and the soul that stands before them.
Clarity beckons clarity, to beget clarity.

Beheld by the beloved
like grey smoke dancing in an invisible wind

The shadow finds its solace in darkness,
The illuminated finds peace within illumination

Two mirrors infinitely reflect the truth.
So, how could I not want to know more of the unknowable.

What is a more truthful true than beholding with the heart
That which cannot be seen with the eyes?

Parched Earth, Quenched Heart

Irony, the beautiful mosaic of a fragmented heart
What more brings rain to remembrance?
O'Beloved, I remember.

It is in my silence
that You hear
how my burning thirst
mouths a drought of tears.

Hearts pump harder
when we bleed, as
Absence sounds the hollows
Of the waiting reed.

Into enormity of emptiness,
the vastness of the beloved to disclose
The sweetest water ever sipped
- by the lovers parched and longing lip -
is the fragrance of the wine red rose.

Inspired by a dear friend, Omid Safi, who wrote:  "This parched earth is our heart. 'Know that God revives the earth after it was dead.' Qur'an 57:17.  Our hearts are like this too: something parched, starving for the rain of affection, and then, miraculously, brought back to life. Praise be to the One who revives what was abandoned for dead, with the water of life….love unleashed."


Writers Comment
Poem adapted from my original note:

It is our silence He hears.
It is our thirst that drinks.
The heart pumps harder, when we bleed.
It is the lightness of absence
that moves the tides of company.
It is the vast emptiness
in which the enormity of the beloved
discloses.

Human Gems

 

"I hadn’t told them about you, but they saw you bathing in my eyes.
I hadn’t told them about you, but they saw you in my written words.
The perfume of love cannot be concealed." ~ Nizar Qabbani

"the perfume of love cannot be concealed,"

...nor its fragrance returned
and resealed in its vial.

The human being is a facetted gem
that cannot contain it's true light.

Those who love genuinely, divinely,
emanate their clarity, color, and cut.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tear Streams in Renditional Evolution

Poetic rendition 3:

Todays our eyes fill with tears
from a voice, a song once filled our ears
could quench an aching world, today, back then
if we'd just all fall in love....again.

O' gather up those endured sorrows
my lovely friends of yesteryear and morrow
and set sail on these saline streams...
toward remember-when - foretold in dreams.



Poetic rendition 2:

Todays tears in our eyes
from hearing a voice, a song back then
could quench an aching world,
if we'd just all fall in love....again.

O', gather up those endured sorrows
my lovely friends
and set sail on these saline streams...
toward remember-when.

There - time and distance, have no say
There - we RE-arrive to not part ways
and what was once,
is happily, magically...always.


Original Poetic Rendition

There - time and distance, have no say
There - we RE-arrive to not part ways
for what is now, will become "once"
happily --  magically -- always.Todays tears in our eyes
from hearing those songs back then
could quench an aching world,
if we'd just all fall in love....
gather up those endured sorrows
my lovely friends
and set sail on these saline streams...

What is Not Reveals What Is

Who we are not, weathers through time
be it by water, wind, will or wine.
Gazing at the talus of our becoming
Amidst the course, drifts the fine.

Our purpose is to bear the breeze
With lips to cup, till weakened knees
Besotted within a life between
Pre-eternal, post eternity.

Thirsting through our body’s gristle
flows the milk beneath the thistle
you, true content sans container
Are pulsing spirit, interstitial.

Life as we [don't] know it

Oh, Beloved,
since finding me,
you have ruined my life
and enlivened my death.

What more can one offer
in gratitude and remembrance.

This duality confounds me. 

You are not my opposite, 

Nor I yours.

The closest I can come 

to being One with You, 

is to first be nothing. 

And how do I make work of this? 

Unity lies in the infinite distance

of the great artists vanishing point,

I need only look to the farthest horizon 

in this portrait of life.

It is

It is our silence He hears.
It is our thirst that drinks.
The heart pumps harder, when we bleed.
It is the lightness of absence
that moves the tides of company.
It is the vast emptiness
in which the enormity of the beloved
discloses.

This love is going to kill me

This love is going to kill me,

Each remembered kiss a slice

to my heart, drawing rivers of words,

to exsanguinate on pages upon pages

of never-ending, ending.

Love bleeds like a sorrowful spring

and yet I keep defending, defending.

Tonight is a night to embrace the lover

to rattle our shells from our ocean's echo

and stir like soul winds wound

in contrapposto... An inhale cedes

In a sigh sweet staccato.

Within the offset sheets of folded rose skin

cured as parchment, pages to be opened

A torch cast shadows on the hearts wall

The rose is illuminated by and all

born from the light of creation.

Impregnated by dew, grape swells to a drop

to burst and roll down the blade

of the vintner's sword into the goblet

O tiny red ocean, O fermentation

release me now, the ransom is paid.

He said I've plucked many roses

from countless bushes

Placed them in fine crystal vases.

But you are a garden

and I, to die,

have been placed within you,

In placeless places.

This one catches flight on anothers breeze

so many cross winds to the sea

This one leather, that one caramel

to be brindle, to be softened

Kun faya koon, kun faya koon

Be, so it is to be.

Oh God, I hate this distance,

that keeps my mouth watering.

Watering for Thee.

Whispering

I have discovered

that God whispers 

among those who proudly proclaim love.

The latter takes us for loves fool 

but I take the whisperer 

as a lover. 

Just whisper.

Grandfather

his skin looked like tree bark... 

and he died on the outside. 

but inside, he was still a tree. 

a big wise tree.

those who give

Those who give,

travel within the deep hull of the given…

this exchange builds a seaworthy vessel

The way your ship lists

is a lullaby.

Humans

Wherever they are gathered,

they are sure to draw attention to themselves.

They are unable to avoid the same eventual malady

but their symptoms are beautiful to behold.

They are painters of great landscapes,

yet challenge painters to capture their colors.

Their greatest moments come during their downfall.

And our rejuvenation comes with their rebirth.

They are the harbingers of memories

of when we climbed among them.

Yet they harbor children in their earthy smell and dampness

before they return again to the earth from the pyre.

They are from various branches of the same order

and keep their life force locked in large cells,

Which escapes as the year wears on,

eventually killing the jailers, and battening down their homes.

But were they not to die,

they might never be born.

Were they not to mingle in the eddying winds,

they would remain quite content,

but all the less noticed.

Regardless, wherever they are gathered,

they are sure to draw attention to themselves.

Humans be humble, lest we forget

the wonder of tree leaves.

Die Beautifullly

Were a rose to know the gift of its own fragrance, 

it would surely die... fulfilled. 

Sweet attar of its sigh

lulls open the red petals of my own empty heart

who could behold such hollowness

without imaging all it can hold

'tis recompense for the rose, I draw deeply...

and die beautifully.

An Empty Gift

A gift is fragrance out of breath

fled from the abode of the urn

seeking respite of a wayfaring vessel 

within whom, it makes its return.

Be not daunted, open the cover,

Draw deeply from spirits fathomless well

Oh, water bearer for the soul of dry parchment,

A river of words erodes the truth a mountain can tell.

Lo, winds of wisdom for the seeking leaf

Softly turn its empty pages

Stir them not, but deliver the stillness

Spoken through the love of inner sages.

Leap not, be gently drawn

Oh, sojourner, not so soon,

Soft, the precipice waits for you to cast

From the abode of your own perfume.

Those who give, journey on

Deep in the heart of others who are given

And when the page seems dark, find the spark

When the flint of the lover strikes the Beloveds frizzen.

(written for a writer at http://skyblueandblack.com/)

Happy Birthday Maha #

Dance Change

Big changes propagate from the slightest shift.... 

one small pebble will unsettle a placid pond... 

parted lips can divide a nation... 

Change within is the dance, 

all around us is music

And we are the musicians... 

Change is not an effect, 

it is the cause... 

play your own music, Mystic! 

And everything dances around you.

(To change your life, you must first live the change.)

In side and beside

The map to your heart,
is in your heart.

So where are you going?
Be still.

The Light in mine
Of which you seek
Illuminates Yours.

Seek the One who points your soul
in love's direction.
He is pointing at you.

Teaspoons of Light

I take in teaspoons of light

to feed the darkness... 

and it still growls with hunger. 

Nothing craves light 

more than a shadow 

with a secret it wants to show.

A Lions Dream

What gives the lion his strength,

is the softness of his Dreams.

Driftwood in Your Ocean

When I am silent,
I am down in my imagination.
I am swimming,
seeing the surface of your eyes,
the sea beneath them,
the currents...
upwelling.

Never mistake my silence for absence.
I am driftwood in your ocean,
you flow above and below.

I seek your presence in the pause..
where the seed of a poem forms.
Such a sweet and quiet place,
your eyes.

I’ve fallen asleep to the essence of you
many evenings..
searching for what you
already hold
and offer
in a kiss.

Delicately compiled from my various drippings and reflections by Maha E.

When someone hears you and assembles you such, into poetic epilogue, this is what happens.  Thank you for seeing the rose through the thorns.

The Albatross

This is the albatross...

Our imaginations are like this; abnormally large wing spans, resting infrequently if at all for many trips around the earth, sleeping in flight, heart only racing when it lands... monogamous, faithful to it's own solitude and stillness - as no other living thing could sustain such speed and endurance without as much movement as a pulse in a thin vein. Anything but that preserved by the divine, falls into fanaa... baqaa > unity, unicity, unification...mm.

Why it rains

My love expels from the aquifer of my being,
in synchrony with a mountain top weathering.

Rock erodes into dust,
coloring the sky red and rust.

Water gathers about the grain
upon everything it rains.

Earth quenched by wine
Arouses the timeless out of time.

Nothing is sacred
The sacred said

Pouring a drunken life
into the cup of the sober dead.

fashioner of wind

you are the faint attar at dawn
quiet, sinuously
slowly in the morning
you stir the fashioner of the winds

Majnun's Leyla
la illah ha illa Allah

the pain of the thorn
is where the rose gets it color from
where fragrance
manifests its message

Halcyon

We occupy different parts of the earth

but we share the same sky

look up

everything is up there

boundless cloud pastures of the imagination

roam in halcyon

The Eyes

I am always amazed at how far your eyes can see
It's not the conquest of vision
it is a surrender to the unseeable.

Where the Beloved Resides

How revealing to find ourselves in the abyss, 

searching the seven continents for answers, 

when all along we are amidst God's shoreless ocean, 

surrounded by love.

We run from the truth 

because we cannot bear the pain of a silent solitary heart - 

yet it is there that the Beloved resides.

River Captain

I'd no real idea what I was looking at 

it seems a sublime visage foretells the future, 

marks the past, 

more than it reveals the present moment. 

Upstream and downstream

share the same unseen -

source and destination both obscured

they meet at the nexus of the bathers consciousness

There is one channel, 

many rivers...

best not to confuse the two

as we return to the ocean

Opposites share the same space

The smallest point, is infinitely small,
unlimited in this respect;
which is more than we can say for the planets...
which are limited in size

"Nothing" is the disclosure of "Everything,"
in a perpetually diminishing state.
So long as we recede into Nothingness,
Everything has perfect and eternal existence.

To embrace Everything,
is to make ourselves diminutive -
we become a single grain of sand
surrounding itself with all the worlds desert dunes and sea shores.

Seek Nothing, leave Everything.
That which we enter and that which we exit
share the same threshold.
We are the door - and both sides of it.

Unfree Poem

A poem is a bird

in a gilded cage

a pining soul

on a weeping page.

Open the door

but still it stays

Close the door

and it flies away.

The mountain on your chest

Our messages, 

all of them past and present, 

but an ensemble of One beckoning source. 

It is true, 

how wind, the pen, 

and water, the scroll, 

will lay a volatile couplet, 

a brief fragrance, 

a ripple, a wave and tide. 

When the wind dies, what? 

The mountain on your chest 

is just the summit of the heart.


our whole lives we talk and write and chat and listen and question...chatter...  yet it's all divine expelling of a single existence.  We think we chat in multitudes, but it is merely God dancing on our tongues and fingertips.  And these things we write and say are so tenuous, fragile, fleeting - like the wind laying a ripple on the water...it could be a ripple, a wave or an entire huge tide...it matters not...because without the Wind (the one steady thing), there is no mark or sound left to see, read, or smell.

That huge burden of mind-speak that mounts on top of us, this mountain of sorrows (fountain of sorrows, I know), piles of vain-glory...are nothing but the summit our hearts must mount.

Written

When there is stillness, the Beloved enters like a mist.

I am disarmed of my words.

There are no empty pages to be found…and my pen has run dry.

The hours gaze from a clock with no face

and I am delivered from the clutches of time and space.

My eyes reflect light from that of a lantern held by a wayfaring messenger.

She says, "I am not writer, I am written."

On Wisdom

When the mind speaks, wisdom puts a finger to its lips, “Hush.” That I fail to find order in my life is evidence that I am seeking the means with my mind and not the ends with my heart. So, I place myself in the path of wisdom, with faith that “order” finds me before each next step taken.

The mind is like the moon. An illusion of beauty in the darkness of night, and an eclipsing silhouette arresting the day.

Wisdom is interrupted by the constant quest for order.

The mind is thimble afloat in a vast ocean of wisdom… riding low in the water.

In-between-ities

There are immeasurably small instants
in an immeasurable eternity.
These "in-between-ities" are where
we neither regret the moments "once-now-gone"
nor those "longed-for-to-happen."

It is the gracefulness of presence
when present.
There at the node of a lamniscate,
a unity so beyond you and I,
that even a "we' cannot be so fathomed.

Not here nor there,
nor now and never.

Coffee Shop Selfie

Anyone can stage a prolific book, a computer, salt and pepper butterscotch cookie, and a steaming cup of cappuccino – heart swirls and all. Photoshop it to misty tears. But really – what’s going on in this picture? Nothing. Nothing the heart can tell.

Why signs

Why look for signs? 

Why even expend an atoms effort to find them...

for we worry a mountain if we don't 

and doubt when we do. 

Nay, everything is everything; 

and I have faith in the signs I don't see. 

And the less I look with my eyes, 

the more I believe with my heart.

Death and LIfe share the same door

Whether abandoned by time or will, 

the rose will endure its falling petals, 

which reunite with the soil,

from which it grows again.  

Were I not to die, 

of what use, this life.