love comes with a knife

this love is beyond

 

Love comes with a knife, not some shy question,

and not with fears for its reputation.

I say these things disinterestedly.

Accept them in kind.

Love is a madman,

 

working his wild schemes,

tearing off his clothes, running through the mountains,

drinking poison, and now quietly choosing annihilation.

 

A tiny spider tries to wrap an enormous wasp.

Think of the spiderweb

woven across the cave where Muhammad slept.

There are love stories,

and there is obliteration into love.

 

You have been walking the ocean’s edge,

holding up your robes to keep them dry.

 

You must dive naked under and deeper under,

a thousand times deeper. Love flows down.

The ground submits to the sky and suffers what comes.

Tell me, is the earth worse for giving in like that?

 

Do not put blankets over the drum.

Open completely.

Let your spirit listen

to the green dome’s passionate murmur.

 

Let the cords of your robe be untied.

Shiver in this new love beyond all above and below.

The sun rises, but which way does the night go?

I have no more words.

 

Let the soul speak with the silent articulation of a face.

 


 

Someone who does not run

toward the allure of love walks

a road where nothing lives.

 

But this dove here senses

the love hawk floating above,

and waits, and will not be driven

or scared to safety.

 

Jalal al-Din Rumi

the book of love

 

with an ever-living heart

jae c. hong

 

Many seek protection

from all hurting influences by building

some wall around themselves. But the canopy over

the earth is so high that a wall cannot be built high enough,

and the only thing one can do is to live in the midst of all

inharmonious influences, to strengthen his will power

and to bear all things, yet keeping the fineness

of character and a nobleness of manner

together with an ever-living

heart.

 

To become cold with the coldness

of the world is weakness, and to become broken

by the hardness of the world is feebleness, but to live in the world

and yet to keep above the world is like walking on the water. There are two

essential duties for the man of wisdom and love; that is to keep the love

in our nature ever increasing and expanding and to strengthen the

will so that the heart may not be easily broken. Balance is ideal

in life; man must be fine and yet strong, man must

be loving and yet powerful.

 

Hazrat Inayat Khan

the training of the ego

 

the thousand-stringed instrument

our own heart must teach us

 

The heart is

The thousand-stringed instrument.

Our sadness and fear come from being

Out of tune with love.

 

All day long God coaxes my lips

To speak,

So that your tears will not stain

His green dress.

 

It is not that the Friend is vain,

It is just your life we care about.

 

Sometimes the Beloved

Takes my pen in hand,

For Hafiz is just a simple man.

 

The other day the Old One

Wrote on the Tavern wall:

 

“The heart is

The thousand-stringed instrument

That can only be tuned with

Love.”

 

Hafiz

the gift