Poetry (2)

Poetry (2)

BismilLaah ar-Rahmaan ar-Raheem

(In the name of AllaaHu, the Reality of Love, the Source of Love)

Sufi, Oh Sufi

Like the soft whisperings of leaves in the stillness of the night

Your freedom and playfulness are a prayer

Your smile is a gift from life unto itself

Your anxiety is a story no one can end

Sufi, Oh Sufi

The child in you hides the seasons of my heart

I know her as my own child

What is there to be unmasked?

Sufi, Oh Sufi

You pour all of your self into the living presence of your Beloved

Even as the Wine-Giver pours love into the earth’s soil that she may expand in gratitude

Is there a remedy for a man who has tasted the dawning of your youth?

And who has drunk intimacy with a soul enchanted?

Sufi, Oh Sufi

Do the seas, mountains and deep forests need to be healed of their solitude?

Like the seasons, I am but a wave drunk with the Whole Ocean

How can I cure myself of that which has given me a greater thirst for life?

Sufi, Oh Sufi

The wind has written a message on the water:

“I am love’s rising and drowning”

Yet all the things you have heard of love and beauty from a heart enflamed

satisfy you not

Is there a song you would rather not hear but drink?

Sufi, Oh Sufi

You speak of pleasure with a smile and a wordlessness

Who shall say you are not a song of freedom?

Who dares say you are not the blossoming of all of beauty’s desires?

Sufi, Oh Sufi

What can I say of she that is drunk with the light and the hues of summer?

What can I say of she that cries with the leaves at the gate of autumn’s sorrowful beauty?

What can I say of she that melts with beauty and silence in winter?

What can I say of she that runs unshackled and innocent with the brooks in spring?

Sufi, Oh Sufi

Neither the superficial nor the deep

Can cage you nor take your wings

For you are life encompassing countless riddles

And seeking endless pleasure

Sufi, Oh Sufi

In drunkenness I have tried to sing you my depths with fullness of heart

How else shall life echo that which is more beautiful than pleasure?

Who is he that can make you long and wait for a world devoid of playfulness?

Sufi, Oh Sufi

Yet I speak not of emptiness and vain glories

Rather I speak of the yielding of a flower when it yields its honey to a visiting bee

I speak of the giving and the receiving of pleasure which is beyond any need

Which is ecstasy sustained at the heart of eternity

Surely you know that unbreakable symmetry in the perception and realization of infinity

Sufi, Oh Sufi

Meet me again and again in the stillness of the night

Allow me to kiss you with a kiss that silences all thoughts

When we are both winged we shall spread our wings on the horizon

And we shall move all of life in passion

Sufi, Oh Sufi

Should my being in your silence create tides that must kill your serenity

Should my whisperings fade in your ears

Should my love vanish as a rebuked stranger in your memory

Should something greater than the night’s silence enfold me in obscurity

Should you ignore me in disbelief, O friend

Just know that nothing is done in vain in the name of love

Sufi, Oh Sufi

For love is a boundlessness that never ceases to create wonder

Again and again, I shall return to you

With a longing that carries streams to the Sea and her depths

With a silence that captures your thoughts and desires

With a spirit deeper and more yielding that knows the secret of your joy and sorrow

Sufi, Oh Sufi

Ishq (Love),

{Dani}