Ursa Major

The clear bead at the center changes everything.

There are no edges to my loving now.

You have heard it said that there is a window

that opens from one mind to another.

But if there is no wall, there is no need

for fitting the window, or the latch.

We take long trips.

We puzzle over the meaning of a painting or a book,

when what we are wanting to see and understand in this world,

we are that.

Does sunset sometimes look like the sun is coming up?

Do you know what a faithful love is like?

You are crying. You say you have burned yourself.

But can you think of anyone who is not hazy with smoke?

Daylight, full of small dancing particles,

and the one great turning,

our souls are dancing with you.

Without feet, they dance.

Can you see them when I whisper in your ear?

They try to say what you are, spiritual or sexual.

They wonder about Solomon and all his wives.

In the body of this world, they say,

there is a soul, and you are that.

But we have ways within each other

that will never be said by anyone.

This human shape is a ghost

made of distraction and pain.

Sometimes pure light, sometimes cruel,

trying wildly to open,

this image so tightly held within itself.

*

The Sufi opens his hand to the universe

and gives away each instant, free.

Unlike someone on the street who begs for money to survive,

a dervish begs to give you his life.

*

Not until someone dissolves,

can he or she know what union is.

That descends only into emptiness.

A lie does not change to truth

with just talking about it.

Soul of this world,

no life, no world remain,

no beautiful men and women longing.

Only this ancient love

circling the holy black stone of nothing,

where the lover is the love,

the horizon and everything within it.

It may be sometimes noisy in the school of love,

but there is never any distinguishing past from present.

No judge decides a precedent here.

In matters of love, judges cannot speak.

 

Rumi, Ursa Major: The Great Bear, the Big Dipper