Clouds Passing Over - One of my own

Clouds Passing Over

Clouds passing over,
What is that you see?
Billions of eyelets
Watching over me.

At what frequency
Do you see and hear
Have you risen enough?
To be above fear.

Clouds passing over,
What do you hear?
Billions of earphones
Tuned above fear.

You see the Sun,
The earth,
And the sky.
Have you answered the questions
Of How and of Why?

Every sound ever uttered
Every noise ever made,
Still vibrates its truth-sound
Its music once played.

Clouds passing over,
What do you feel?
The softness of earth?
The light that would heal?

Oh Clouds ever changing
Dissolving in air.
Do you witness to Love
What's true and what's fair?

Oh clouds I befriend you
I study your speech.
This honor I send you.
As far as you reach.

© 2007 Shams-i-

Whoever Brought Me Here, Will Have To Take Me Home - Rumi

Whoever Brought Me Here, Will Have To Take Me Home.
Rumi

All day I think about it, then at night I say it.
Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.
This drunkenness began in some other tavern.
When I get back around to that place,
I'll be completely sober.
Meanwhile,I'm like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary.
The day is coming when I fly off,
but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?
Who says words with my mouth?
Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul? I cannot stop asking.
If I could taste one sip of an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.
I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way.
Whoever brought me here, will have to take me home.
This poetry. I never know what I'm going to say.
I don't plan it.
When I'm outside the saying of it,
I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.

Trans. Coleman Barks.

Cradle My Heart

Cradle My Heart

Last night,
I was lying on the rooftop,
thinking of you.
I saw a special Star,
and summoned her to take you a message.
I prostrated myself to the Star
and asked her to take my prostration
to that Sun of Tabriz.
So that with his light, he can turn
my dark stones into gold.
I opened my chest and showed her my scars,
I told her to bring me news
of my bloodthirsty Lover.
As I waited,
I paced back and forth,
until the child of my heart became quiet.
The child slept, as if I were rocking his cradle.
Oh Beloved, give milk to the infant of the heart,
and don't hold us from our turning.
You have cared for hundreds,
don't let it stop with me now.
At the end, the town of unity is the place for the heart.
Why do you keep this bewildered heart
in the town of dissolution?
I have gone speechless, but to rid myself
of this dry mood,
oh Saaqhi, pass the narcissus of the wine.

From: 'Hush Don't Say Anything to God: Passionate Poems of Rumi' Translated by Sharam Shiva

Be with those who help your being

Be with those who help your being.
Don’t sit with indifferent people, whose breath
comes cold out of their mouths.
Not these visible forms, your work is deeper.
A chunk of dirt thrown in the air breaks to pieces.
If you don’t try to fly,
and so break yourself apart,
you will be broken open by death,
when it’s too late for all you could become.
Leaves get yellow. The tree puts out fresh roots
and makes them green.
Why are you so content with a love that turns you yellow?

Ode 2865 Trans. Coleman Barks
Index of Rumi Poems