CAMELOT FANTASIES

Be Lost in the Call   



   
Lord, said David, since you do not need us,
 why did you create these two worlds?

Reality replied: O prisoner of time,
 I was a secret treasure of kindness and generosity,
 and I wished this treasure to be known,
 so I created a mirror: its shining face, the heart;
 its darkened back, the world;
 The back would please you if you've never seen the face.

Has anyone ever produced a mirror out of mud and straw?
 Yet clean away the mud and straw,
 and a mirror might be revealed.

Until the juice ferments a while in the cask,
 it isn't wine. If you wish your heart to be bright,
 you must do a little work.

My King addressed the soul of my flesh:
 You return just as you left.
 Where are the traces of my gifts?

We know that alchemy transforms copper into gold.
 This Sun doesn't want a crown or robe from God's grace.
 He is a hat to a hundred bald men,
 a covering for ten who were naked.

Jesus sat humbly on the back of an ass, my child!
 How could a zephyr ride an ass?
 Spirit, find your way, in seeking lowness like a stream.
 Reason, tread the path of selflessness into eternity.

Remember God so much that you are forgotten.
 Let the caller and the called disappear;
 be lost in the Call.

-
"Love is a Stranger", Kabir Helminski
 Threshold Books, 1993

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O you who've gone on pilgrimage -
               where are you, where, oh where?
 Here, here is the Beloved!
               Oh come now, come, oh come!
 Your friend, he is your neighbor,
              he is next to your wall -
You, erring in the desert -
              what air of love is this?
 If you'd see the Beloved's
               form without any form -
You are the house, the master,
               You are the Kaaba, you! . . .
 Where is a bunch of roses,
               if you would be this garden?
 Where, one soul's pearly essence
               when you're the Sea of God?
 That's true - and yet your troubles
               may turn to treasures rich -
How sad that you yourself veil
               the treasure that is yours!

Rumi 'I Am Wind, You are Fire'
 Translation by Annemarie Schimmel



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Oh, if a tree could wander
      and move with foot and wings!
 It would not suffer the axe blows
      and not the pain of saws!
 For would the sun not wander
      away in every night ?
 How could at ev?ry morning
      the world be lighted up?
 And if the ocean?s water
      would not rise to the sky,
 How would the plants be quickened
      by streams and gentle rain?
 The drop that left its homeland,
      the sea, and then returned ?
 It found an oyster waiting
      and grew into a pearl.
 Did Yusaf not leave his father,
      in grief and tears and despair?
 Did he not, by such a journey,
      gain kingdom and fortune wide?
 Did not the Prophet travel
      to far Medina, friend?
 And there he found a new kingdom
      and ruled a hundred lands.
 You lack a foot to travel?
      Then journey into yourself!
 And like a mine of rubies
      receive the sunbeams? print!
 Out of yourself ? such a journey
      will lead you to your self,
 It leads to transformation
      of dust into pure gold!


Look! This is Love - Poems of Rumi,
 Annemarie Schimme


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Come, come, whoever you are.

Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.

It doesn't matter.

Ours is not a caravan of despair.

Come, even if you have broken your vow

a thousand times

Come, yet again, come, come.

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We are as the flute, and the music in us is from thee;
 we are as the mountain and the echo in us is from thee.

 We are as pieces of chess engaged in victory and defeat:
 our victory and defeat is from thee, O thou whose qualities are comely!

 Who are we, O Thou soul of our souls,
 that we should remain in being beside thee?

 We and our existences are really non-existence;
 thou art the absolute Being which manifests the perishable.

 We all are lions, but lions on a banner:
 because of the wind they are rushing onward from moment to moment.

 Their onward rush is visible, and the wind is unseen:
 may that which is unseen not fail from us!

 Our wind whereby we are moved and our being are of thy gift;
 our whole existence is from thy bringing into being.

 
Masnavi Book I, 599-607
 
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On the DeathbedGo, rest your head on a pillow, leave me alone;
 leave me ruined, exhausted from the journey of this night,
 writhing in a wave of passion till the dawn.
 Either stay and be forgiving,
 or, if you like, be cruel and leave.
 Flee from me, away from trouble;
 take the path of safety, far from this danger.
 We have crept into this corner of grief,
 turning the water wheel with a flow of tears.
 While a tyrant with a heart of flint slays,
 and no one says, "Prepare to pay the blood money."
 Faith in the king comes easily in lovely times,
 but be faithful now and endure, pale lover.
 No cure exists for this pain but to die,
 So why should I say, "Cure this pain"?
 In a dream last night I saw
 an ancient one in the garden of love,
 beckoning with his hand, saying, "Come here."
 On this path, Love is the emerald,
 the beautiful green that wards off dragonsnough, I am losing myself.
 If you are a man of learning,
 read something classic,
 a history of the human struggle
 and don't settle for mediocre verse.
Kulliyat-i-Shams 2039
   


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