“There’s a morning when presence comes over your soul …” ~ Rumi
There’s a morning when
presence comes over your soul.
You sing like a rooster
in your earth-colored shape.
Your heart hears and,
no longer frantic,
begins to dance.
At that moment,
soul reaches total emptiness.
Your heart becomes Mary,
miraculously pregnant,
and body like a two-day-old
Jesus says wisdom words.
Now the heart, which is the
source of your loving,
turns to universal light,
and the body picks up
the tempo and elegance
of its motion.
Where Shams-i Tabriz walks
the footprints become notations of music
and holes you fall through into space.
~~ Rumi
This poem is an excerpt from Chapter 19, Dawn: Spring Morning Listening which is from the book The Soul of Rumi (see attribution below) … with the following preamble, On Dawn, by Coleman for the chapter and the poems within:
“… There is a sweet knowing in the air of early dawn that Rumi continuously reminds us to breathe: a time when we feel our lineage with wet earth and sun. Breezes then are pregnant with love, and that love is pregnant with God. Some withinness about to be born is the generative power he wakes to praise: when the body begins new ways of knowing: a dropping away of mind that brings the sudden tap of the skimming spoon he calls true hospitality. …” ~ Coleman Barks
Coleman Barks has the amazing gift of translating the original Persian/Farsi text in a manner that resonates with the English speaking world … he took the ever present “freshness” that is alive in Rumi and expressed it in English – an incredible feat particularly when you discover that Coleman had never heard of Rumi prior to 1976 when Robert Bly handed him a Rumi translation and said “please release these poems from their cages!” … and …
As a result of Bly’s insightful genius in seeing Coleman’s literary gift, the English speaking world has been able, and continues, to relish Coleman’s accomplished brilliance as he brings Rumi’s “Divinely drunk madness” ever “closer” to so many of us, not just in the west but everywhere in the world.
Poetry from The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems, by Coleman Barks
Image (edited and logos added) 1 & Featured) Sunrise Pier, 2) Sunrise Seascape. Both by Pok_Rie. All are CCO Public Domain.
Thank you for your work in sharing Rumi and his deeply rich way of
introducing us to our inner Beloved in ways yet unknown to some of
us.
Well said Carol.
Rumi is a treasure beyond measure.
Thanks for stopping by.
Be safe and well.
Sanjiv