On the Road to Konya

Sometimes I get tired of all this talk about God
and I just want to go and sit under a tree

but then the tree starts talking to me about God
and we find ourselves in another conversation

No two people and no two things talk about God
in quite the same way

A wheel running down a hill all by itself talks about God
while its hub remains stationary and its spokes rotate

An ant has another way of approaching the subject
that has about it a certain collective resonance

Inanimate objects on the other hand often comment on their surroundings
and the pleasant or unpleasant sets of circumstances
that landed them there

Stars have the softest voices and you have to listen more attentively
but their take on the theme is always illuminating
and sheds light in many unexpected and even faraway places

A lover often speaks about God in incomplete sentences
with clouds of various colors and densities
moving slowly or quickly around their
faces and most unselfconscious gestures as they speak in
intimate whispers

And then I’m brought back again to the sweet syrups of this endless
talk about God that goes on every instant
even when no one seems to know what they’re talking about
or why they began conversing in the first place

The serpent winks the sunflower opens its concentric
mathematical mandala
flat and desolate wastes yawn and the air shivers

I stick out my tongue and God’s breath flows all around it
whether we speak or remain silent as we sail through the
divine events of the sky and earth’s decisive

theological arguments with all their perfect proofs and occasional
long and melancholy refutations

---

9/21/2003 (from Love is a Letter Burning in a High Wind)

Categories: Poems, Visionary Nature, Saints / Awliyya