Happy Easter!!!

Salaam and Greetings of Peace:

Everyone has eaten and fallen asleep. The house is empty. We walk out to the garden to let the apple meet the peach, to carry messages between rose and jasmine.

Spring is Christ,
Raising martyred plants from their shrouds.
Their mouths open in gratitude, wanting to be kissed.
The glow of the rose and the tulip means a lamp is inside.
A leaf trembles. I tremble in the wind-beauty like silk from Turkestan.
The censer fans into flame.

This wind is the Holy Spirit.
The trees are Mary.
Watch how husband and wife play subtle games with their hands.
Cloudy pearls from Aden are thrown across the lovers,
as is the marriage custom.

The scent of Joseph’s shirt comes to Jacob.
A red carnelian of Yemeni laughter is heard
by Muhammad in Mecca.

We talk about this and that. There’s no rest except on these branching moments.

- Jalaluddin Rumi (from The Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks)

Ya Haqq!

Roots and Seeds

to mention them all
would take a lifetime.
here are just a few:
tulip, tomato, woman,
river, camel, whale,
raindrop, star, bird,
pearl, lion, cloud,
tree, beetle, moon…

if you were to search
within each one
and search within again
and again and again,

farther than any microscope
could go, you would be amazed
to find every atom swirling
around and around and around
the One. within you is a root
going back to Him that contains
the answer to every secret,
the remedy for every doubt.
the heartbeat of everything
in the universe. you, alone,
would be nothing if you knew
you are not you, but a God-seed
of the eternal Truth.

- From Sister Annie’s While Kneeling Before the Rose poetry blog. Reposted with permission.

Ya Haqq!