Bedtime Poetry: I have learned so much... (Hafiz)

 I
Have
Learned
So much from God
That I can no longer
Call
Myself

A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim
A Buddhist, a Jew.

The Truth has shared so much of itself
With me

That I can no longer call myself
A man, a woman, an angel
Or even pure
Soul.

Love has
Befriended Hafiz so completely
It has turned to ash
And freed
Me

Of every concept and image
My mind has ever known.

	~ Hafiz ~              Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

Bedtime Poetry: Even after all this time... (Hafiz)

Even
After
All this time
The Sun never says to the Earth,

"You owe me."

Look
What happens

With a love like that,

It lights the whole sky.

~ Hafiz ~

Bedtime Poetry: Live your way into the answer... (Rilke)

 

I beg you, to have patience with

everything unresolved in your heart

and to try to love the questions themselves,

as if they were locked rooms

or books written in a very foreign language.

Don't search for the answers,

which could not be given to you now,

because you would not be able to live them.

And the point is, to live everything.

Live the questions now.

Perhaps then, someday far in the future,

you will gradually,

without even noticing it,

live your way into the answer.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~

Bedtime Poetry: Busy as this day may be . . .

 

Busy as this day may be, there is a still-point within it.

As time runs by like a river racing to the sea,

the Spirit creates quiet pools, small islands,

spaces to break the single-minded movement.

Find one of these today

before you white water over rocks.

Even a small silence can calm your soul.

Sit in peace.

Close your eyes.

 

Breathe.

See how the water wears sunlight like diamonds,

shadows like a shawl.

 ~ Steven Charleston ~

From Hope As Old As Fire  

Good, Bad, Who Knows?

Good, Bad, Who Knows?

There is a Chinese story of a farmer who used an old horse to till his fields. One day, the horse escaped into the hills and when the farmer's neighbors sympathized with the old man over his bad luck, the farmer replied, "Good, Bad, who knows?" 

A week later, the horse returned with a herd of horses from the hills and this time the neighbors congratulated the farmer on his good luck. His reply was, "Good, Bad, who knows?"

Then, when the farmer's son was attempting to tame one of the wild horses, he fell off its back and broke his leg. Everyone thought this very bad luck. Not the farmer, whose only reaction was, "Good, Bad, who knows?"

Some weeks later, the army marched into the village and conscripted every able-bodied youth they found there. When they saw the farmer's son with his broken leg, they let him off. 

Now was that good luck or bad luck?

Who knows?

Everything that seems on the surface to be an evil may be a good in disguise. And everything that seems good on the surface may really be an evil.

                                     Author Unknown