Salaam and Greetings of Peace:
Below are the entries in the 3rd Sufi Poetry Carnival, whose theme this year is The Mystic Heart. There are also a number of outstanding entries on the website of our co-host Sadiq’s blog, Technology of the Heart, which you can read HERE. Also, poems that first appeared on a blog are linked to that blog in the title.
Bodypsalm for ThanksBeing
By Celeste Snowber
Let go of all your expectations
about the way you think life should be
where you should live, work, play and
how things will or do unfold
or look, or how many pounds is ideal
for your perfect weight,
or the perfect work space,
footwear, friends, food or family
or how much you should or should not have in the bank
or in loans, debt, or all the shoulds rolled into
one BIG s h o u l d
Throw all the shoulds out
put them in the recycling bin
to be transformed into another object
and OBJECT as a verb
instead of count objects
This is wisdom
Nothing ever turns out as you think
it is always different
sometimes worse
and more magnificent than you could have imagined
Live with VERBS
Gratitude is not a one time act, a date on the calendar
it is a way of life
a way of living
that centers with a turning towards
what is really life giving
that is giving life back to yourself
giving in thanks
thanks in giving
thinking as thanking
Stop everything
and smell, taste, see, and touch
what beauty really lies
within you
and before you
What would it mean to live without judging –
yourself or others
cast off your critic
and celebrate you have the ability
to touch and be touched
Find the absolute outrageous love
of being alive
NOW
and not having your tasks done
or agendas finished
and drop your hands
open your sternum and chest
get ready for the mystery
that is knocking at your own bodysoul
be in gratitude for what you seldom notice
and see there is wonder here too
all shades belong
recognize we are all part of this complexity
from where stars are borne
and where we shine
grow downwards
to extend your heart
and dance your way
into the next step
which is calling you
to simply
not give thanks
but B E thanks.
An early morning song of a bird
Brings forth a wave of life from the sea of eternity
And the bride of sun unveils its beauty
Its golden complexion attracts and brings everyone within her enfoldment
The green of leaves touches the red of roses
And the scent of roses prevails everywhere
The bud of my heart flowers right here and now
And a song of its fragrance touches the bird’s flight
– Hasan Nizami Meerza
Ramadan 1430
© Noor-Malika Chishti, September 14, 2009
The panorama before me—a vastness reined by mountains and sky,
is perfectly dotted with hawks riding high
on air currents made visible by their wings.
Following the curve of a red-tailed messenger,
I am graced to viscerally feel a moment of suspension
as the wind, billowing his wings, shifts
and his flight pattern drops to continue upon a new course. We never know when the Most Merciful will offer us a glimpse,
designed to let us know,
this is just for you.
In this moment I was gifted a taste of His unwavering Love and
remembered when Musa1 viewed the shattered mountain top.
I imagine I want to experience the One
when all I can handle
is a small sign on the horizon that is felt within me.
Whisperings of the Heart – Stewart Bitkoff
Most travelers make religion too complicated a thing; adding rules and customs that many times get in the way of direct communication. Religion should be a joyous conversation between your self, your higher self, and the Infinite. Travelers must learn to listen to the quiet stirrings of their heart . . . here the communication is the sweetest.
*
“Be still and know that I am God.”
*
The Heart
Traveler: What of the Heart?
Master: The Heart dwells within the soul and is the window through which we experience God. It is the fountain through which the river flows and is the mirror of God’s Love. It is God’s Gift to you and I.
Some Hearts easily perceive God’s wonders and others are hardened to God’s Glory. This mystery is God’s alone.
The Heart is like the babe who yearns to be in the mother’s arms. It is waiting to go home, and when God Calls the rejoicing begins.
Wedding Drippings by barsili
This passionate heart set ablaze,
Delighting in others wedding ceremonies,
She’s crazy!
She goes to weddings,
And her heart curls in grief—over and over again.
Fool!
One would think she’s a masochist!
Bent over in love’s agonizing yearning,
As tears rise from her bowels!
She has no shame!
Silly girl!
She takes engineered words to heart!
What fortitude!
Made anew by the Beloved,
She won’t settle for any other…
But The One!
He who revealed her hidden jewels,
The One who scorns and distances Himself from her!
Look with your inner eye…
Each dripping letter of the word “LOVE” is her Master,
Her Maker—the Owner of her heart.
swaying — a poem by Tashi
I sway on the ocean
of life
riding the waves
floating atop
to reach the highs
of love
waiting to overcome
the sorrow
my ego tells me
to follow
when my heart knows
the true joy
the true potential
hidden in the smallest
grain of sand
deep on the ocean floor
beneath me
the light
the consciousness
of Allah
– By Natasha Carolanne Farmilo-Marouf (Tashi), April 7/2011
The Company of Lovers – Sian Rider, Jan 2008
Welcome to the company of lovers
food for the hungry soul;
no need for candles at our meeting
lit by the light of the Beloved
on every face love glows.
Here, in the company of lovers
‘huuus’ greet weary souls;
traveller, enjoy a dervish greeting
warmed by the flame of the Beloved
and burning, burning, grow.
This is the company of lovers
where friends meet soul to soul
in song, and daf, and music all too fleeting
forever praising our Beloved
this love unfolding like an opening rose.
The Mystic Heart by Sheriff Olanrewaju
Once I met the bint with a foray into mysticism
She sought purification for the love of monotheism
And a sincere intention to flee from hedonism
While on the verge to seek her Lord’s indefinite mercy
She eschewed misdeeds as a matter of urgency
And curbed her sick-heart from arrant indecency
Like Rabi-al-Adawiyya she brooked great insight
Into a rubble-worked hermit she went out of sight
To chant tesbih for much-sought mystic might
Must she forever in seclusion drink spiritual albumen–
While mysticism requires munificence to fellow men?
Would the lion hunt not while preys run from the den?
For never in renunciation can the word be disseminated,
And the passport to wusool would be rendered antiquated
Shall mysticism like bidha be ignorantly relegated?
– by One With God
PostScript:
Strange words:
Bint: Girl
Tesbih: Spiritual Praise
Wusool: A height attained by the mystics
Bidha: Innovation
The Rose -by Rosalind Beeton
Your fragrance drifts into my consciousness,
mists my mind, stirs the longing.
Pink, soft-petaled, you burst open to your love,
a perfect aria as yellow stamens reach out
to a waiting world. Your buds enclose your secret
as they gather energy to unfurl into a world of longing.
My heart uncurls to your embrace,
a sacred sound.
The rose, footprint of the Beloved is present.
I long to merge, wait on your presence,
taste your fragrance, touch your music
that ripples through your pink cells.
Why is the longing so intense
when the space is here for your love to flower?
A Selection from The Sufi’s Garland
by Manav Sachdeva Maasoom
CXVIII
Anything that means anything is usually not said.
CXIX
Though I may be vagrant I am not beggary…
CL
love knows neither a’s nation nor the boundaries of b’s birth religion…knows only the rupture of torrent springs when in the beloved’s garden
CXXXIII
Is the end the beginning or is it not
An approximation of your own hands I have or not
CXXXIV
we search for a wine-pourer, server when we serve our companions in our search for the beloved
tired of the influence and authority of the world we choose one but to do just the same
CXXXV
The land of eternity I’ll find, in such search I circled this circle of earth
Deserts and oceans I took
what sights of beauty and bridges
of and in clouds in my wakeful quest
turned and returned, pour and pour.
CXXXVI
those who we consider sinners and reasons of our eyes’s rivers
are in the end the doers of their bitterness in lives embellishing
(Note: See the great Huffington Post review of The Sufi’s Garland HERE.)
Who is God and who is me?
Who is God and who is me?
Who searches whom?
God is searching me
I know I am within His reach.
But how can I reach Him
Who will show me His way
I am in search of my creator
From the day He created me.
I am His god on this planet
And He is My God in my soul
Whom I have not seen yet
Oh my creator, put me in hell
But grant me your audience
Only for once before you send
me to hell.
I may be a sinner
But I love you
More than I love myself.
copyright by Ershad Mazumder
You have turned me
You have turned me
on the wheel of your heart.
You have tuned me
to the sound of your voice.
You have emptied me
in the wind of your storm.
You have turned me
on the wheel of your heart.
You have made of me
a strange vessel,
empty, yet full
of your blessed grace.
(Poem 42 of a series of poems dedicated to Sufi teacher Irina Tweedie)
by Maria Lancaster
Hidden in the White Roses – Fahredin Shehu
open my chest if you want to see the rod of heaven’s river, while it strains in its bed,
where the white roses swim…
The hunger for beauty created canyons of longing for a quantum of moment.
Again leaving is telling me thunder as melodeon, quiver of veins and bones,
while I come to Thy meeting embarrassedly hide life’s broken toy, buried in human darkness; Alas you know my pains, tears in blood percolated as black pressed grapes
While I swirled in the whirlpool of “I”-s, seeking for the spark of the of Your sight
Remained deaf for the multitude of “THEM”, and the multitude of “US”
The moon is full, the moonlight feeds me while I listen lullabys of Gabriel
To sleep the thirsty souls; the starmist flirts to my appearance as it wishes to drop its mercy, at the pain caused by human poison.
These words are arguments of the Threshold of the other side where the describable forms and the audible voices disappear, and the tongue knotted in nine knots.
The eye is stopping the sight to store its image in my consciousness.
Behold oh…”I” of the “US” while we rejoice within the White Roses and while we lick the pearly dews at dawn, and we smell the distant Neroli at dusk
While we celebrate life as cosmic minute that lasts for eternity and a day more.
Darvish 