Journeying god

 (image credit - Wyle Art Studio)

Journeying god,

pitch your tent with mine

so that I may not become deterred

by hardship, strangeness, doubt.

Show me the movement I must make

toward a wealth not dependent on possessions,

toward a wisdom not based on books,

toward a strength not bolstered by might,

toward a god not confined to heaven.

Help me to find myself as I walk in other's shoes.

(Prayer song from Ghana, traditional, translator unknown)

In Silence

Expression always falls short of meaning.

The Prophet said, "Whoever knows God, his tongue falters."

Speech is an astrolabe in its reckoning.

How much does it really know of the sky and the sun?

Or of that Sky which holds this heaven as a speck;

and that Sun which shows this sun to be a grain of sand?

Mathnawi II: 3013-3015

Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski

"Rumi: Daylight", Threshold Books, 1994

REVISIT

Hush! And say no more...
The tip of a tongue doesn't hold any secret
Don't ever try to explain...
Silent!
and
Kiss me on my lips..

((image credit : down-bedding-delights))

Like This ! Like This !

For Every Single Breath Taken...

Quatrain 1359

Do you think I am in control here?
That for a moment, or even half a moment,
I can tell you what's going on?

I am no more than a pen in a writer's hand.
A ball smacked around by a polo stick.

  Version by Jonathan Star
"Rumi - In the Arms of the Beloved"
Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, New York 1997


THE ONE WHO OWNS

Another version of Quatrain 1359.....

Do you think I know what I'm doing?
That for one breath or half-breath
I belong to myself?
As much as a pen knows what it's writing
or the ball can guess where it's going next.

Version by Coleman Barks
"The Essential Rumi", Castle Books, 1997