checking the frenzy

Don't flail about like a man wearing a blindfold.
Believe me, He's in here.
Come in and see for yourself.
You'll stop hunting for Him all over.

- Lalla  (14th century)

-trans.  --ranjit hoskote

rumi translates "roman"

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

~ Rumi ~

Epigram

Because I am idolatrous and have besought,
With grievous supplication and consuming prayer,
The admirable image that my dreams have wrought
Out of her swan's neck and her dark, abundant hair:
The jealous gods, who brook no worship but their own,
Turned my live idol marble, and her heart to stone.
   - Ernest Dowson    +1900

The Wild Geese

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.

   -Wendell Berry

















...

found poem

DANGER!


screen will
      not
       keep child
from falling out.
only open top window.

{and there was a graphic picture
    of a child stumbling out of a window
       into  real concrete physical peril}