POETRY: Rumi - love

Love comes with a knife,
not some shy question,
and not with fears for its reputation!

I say these things disinterestedly.
Accept them in kind.
Love is a madman,

working his wild schemes, tearing off his clothes,

running through the mountains, drinking poison,

and now quietly choosing annihilation.

A tiny spider tries to wrap an enormous wasp.

Think of the spider web woven across the cave

where Muhammad slept.
There are love stories,

and there is obliteration into love.

You've been walking the ocean’s edge,

holding up your robes to keep them dry.

You must dive naked under and deeper under,

a thousand times deeper!

Love flows down.

The ground submits to the sky and suffers

what comes.
Tell me, is the earth worse

for giving in like that?

Don’t put blankets over the drum!

Open completely.
Let your spirit-ear

listen to the green dome’s passionate murmur.

Let the cords of your robe be untied.

Shiver in this new love beyond all

above and below.
The sun rises, but which way does night go? 

I have no more words.

Let soul speak with the silent

articulation of a face.

 
Love is reckless, not reason;
reason seeks a profit.

Love comes on strong,

consuming herself, unabashed.

Yet, in the midst of suffering,

Love proceeds like a millstone,

hard surfaced and straightforward.

Having died of self-interest,

Love risks everything and asks for nothing.

Love gambles away every gift God bestows.

Without cause, God gave us being.

Without cause, give it back again.

 


 
The way of love is not a subtle argument.

The door there is devastation.

Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom.

How do they learn it?

They fall, and falling, they're given wings.








  


Gamble everything for love,

if you're a true human being.

If not, leave this gathering.

Half-heartedness doesn't reach into majesty.

You set out to find love, but then you keep

stopping for long periods

at mean-spirited roadhouses!  















When love comes suddenly and taps 

on your window, run and let it in but first, 

shut the door of your reason. 

Even the smallest hint chases love away 

like smoke that drowns the freshness 

of the morning breeze. 

To reason love can only say, 

the way is barred, you can't pass through 

but to the lover it offers a hundred blessings. 

Before the mind decides to take a step 

love has reached the seventh heaven. 

Before the mind can figure how 

love has climbed the holy mountain. 

I must stop this talk now and let 

love speak from its nest of silence.





 

If I told you about a land of love,

friends, would you follow me and come?

In that land are vineyards

that yield a deadly wine-

no glass can hold it. 

Would you swallow it as a remedy?

The people there must suffer.

Would you serve the sweetest drink to others

and take the bitter drink yourself?

There are no moons or suns there.

Nothing waxes or wanes.

Would you surrender your plans

and forget about your materials?

Awaken!

don't become unconscious

in words and treasures

in ceremonies and materials.

Awaken!

don't become a collector

of signposts and maps

of pointers and rules.

When the door is opened

walk through,

don't just stand there

staring at the open doorway!

There comes a time

when nothing is meaningful

except surrendering to love.

DO IT.











I open and fill with love 

and what is not love evaporates. 

All the learning in books stays put 

on the shelf. Poetry, the dear 

words and images of song, comes down 

over me like mountain water.    




 
 

I am in love!
I am in love with him.
All this advise--
what's the use?
I have drunk poison.
All this sugar--
what's the use?
You say hurry, tie up his feet.
But its my heart that's gone crazy,
all this rope
around my feet--
what's the use?

Yesterday the beauty of early dawn came over me, 

and I wondered who

my heart would reach towards. 

Then this morning again, and you. 

Who am I?

Wind and fire and watery ground

move me mightily because 

they're pregnant with love,
love pregnant with GOD.
These are 

the early morning generations I praise.

Love is the way messengers 

from the mystery tell us things. 

Love is the mother. We are her children. 

She shines inside us, visible-invisible, 

as we lose trust or feel it start to grow again. 

Love is not condescension,
never that, nor books, nor any marking on paper,
nor what people say of each other.
Love is a tree with 

branches reaching into eternity 

and roots set deep in eternity, 

and no trunk!
Have you seen it? 

The mind cannot. Your desiring cannot.
The longing you feel for 

this love comes from inside you. 

When you become the Friend,
your longing will be as the man in 

the ocean who holds to a piece of  wood.
Eventually, wood, man, and 

ocean become one swaying being, 

Shams Tabriz, the secret of God. 

Why should we tell you our love stories

when you spill them together like blood in the dirt?

Love is a pearl lost on the ocean floor,

or a fire we can’t see,

but how does saying that

push us through the top of the head into

the light above the head?

Love is not an iron pot,
so this boiling energy won’t help.

Soul, heart, self.

Beyond and within those

is one saying,

How long before

I’m free of this torture!

There is some kiss we want

with our whole lives, the touch

of spirit on the body. Seawater

begs the pearl to break its shell.

And the lily, how passionately

it needs some wild darling!

At night, I open the window and ask

the moon to come and press its

face against mine.

Breathe into me. Close

the language-door and open the love-window.

The moon won’t use the door,

only the window.

Love comes sailing through and I scream.

Love sits beside me like a private supply of itself.

Love puts away the instruments

and takes off the silk robes. Our nakedness

together changes me completely.

Reason is powerless in the expression of love.

Love alone is capable of revealing
the truth of love and being a lover.
If you want to live, die in love;
die in love if you want to remain alive.

 
My love, you are closer to me than myself,
you shine through my eyes.
Your light is brighter than the Moon.
Step into the garden
so all the flowers, even the tall poplar
can kneel before your beauty.
Let your voice silence the lily
famous for its hundred tongues.
When you want to be kind you are
softer than the soul but when you withdraw
you can be so cold and harsh.

Dear one, you can be wild and rebellious but
when you meet him face to face
his charm will make you docile like the earth.
Throw away your shield and bare your chest
there is no stronger protection than him.

That's why when the dervish withdraws
from the world he covers all the cracks in the wall,
so the outside light cannot come though.
He knows that only the inner light
illuminates his world.