What does happen when we stop swallowing the flame, whatever it might be? This world, our own drudgery, our passions, low or high, that locus of our experience we call “I” – and take a break? There’s a Sufi text by Shaykh ibn ‘Ata Illah whose title I’ve always loved: “The Giving Up of the Management of Your Affairs.” Neat trick! But somehow that’s also the key to the present title, and God willing to something of the poems this book contains.
Knot of Gold / Road to Konya / In Rumi’s Tomb (Sufi Symposium 2012)
The Prophet took people of abject poverty
and strewed rubies at their feet
There was no glass in the Prophet’s windows
for any brick to break
In each heart he ties a knot of gold
whose two ends make eternity’s
radiant reclining figure eight
gazed upon by God
We can stand in the door he made in
our being or stride through it into God’s
Presence
The Prophet never rode out on his she camel
but that they longed for his return
11/24/2007 (from The Fire Eater’s Lunchbreak)
Go to Poem
When the Prophet Came In
(peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)
We were sometimes noble sometimes venal
sometimes generous sometimes murderous
When the Prophet came in in his
usual way and sat down among us
His elegant brilliance never ceased to amaze us
and the fact that he knew what we
didn’t know we needed to know
When the Prophet came in in his
usual way and sat down among us
We’d give up our lives for what he told us was true
while those of the rest of us kept
silent in his presence
When the Prophet came in in his
usual way and sat down among us
We might not have believed him
if not for the Qur’an which
made the material world immaterial and the
spiritual world real
When the Prophet came in in his
usual way and sat down among us
We who knew him before knew he was
telling the truth
when we saw the light that always went
with him
When the Prophet came in in his
usual way and sat down among us
The dust from his robes glittered like starlight
and his face in its brightness shone like the full moon
When the Prophet came in in his
usual way and sat down among us
And his resonant voice in its even
melodious tones had a jewel-like beauty
all of its own
When the Prophet came in in his
usual way and sat down among us
And if ever you were able to look in his eyes
and though he was shy he never
averted his gaze
When the Prophet came in in his
usual way and sat down among us
you might see Paradise in their dazzling light
as well as hear it in the words from his lips
When the Prophet came in in his
usual way and sat down among us
And we felt we were wrapped in wings of angels
and a few feet off the ground
When the Prophet came in in his
usual way and sat down among us
and everyone of us felt suddenly wiser
listening intently to the depths of
what he was saying
When the Prophet came in in his
usual way and sat down among us
and all of us felt we partook of his beauty
his strength and purpose and above all
the Presence of God
When the Prophet came in in his
usual way and sat down among us
To sit in his presence was to sit in the Presence of
God all around and within us
now and forever
When the Prophet came in in his
usual way and sat down among us
and we took that realization with us
wherever we went and whenever we
remembered
how the Prophet came in in his
usual way and sat down among us
and to this day and to this moment I can
see him and feel his totally
humble but majestic presence
when the Prophet came in in his
usual way and sat down among us
It will never end till the end of time and
beyond time just as at the beginning
at the radiant creation’s inception
when by Allah the Prophet came in in his
usual way and sat down among us
each and every one of us in
whatever state or station we
happen to be in
for the Prophet to come in in his
usual way and sit down among us
in spiritual presence and eternal
resonance glorifying that pivotal
moment in human history
when the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him
came in in his usual way with no
pomp but in utter humanity
and sat down among us
3/11/2008 (from The Fire Eater’s Lunchbreak)
Go to Poem
A Little Door
A little door at the bottom of it all
opens up and when you
crouch down to get in
it’s as vast as the sky itself
You can pick out the stars by night
and the planets by day
Get up from your crouch and
extend throughout all its heavenly spheres
where nothing is really holding us back
except ourselves and a few tall
mountains of bone and lead and
mournful voices
OK they don’t exist either
3/18/2008 (from The Fire Eater’s Lunchbreak)
Go to Poem
