A Poem of Sufi Love from Maryam

Sometimes I write about poetry here and sometimes I write poetry myself. Today I read the following poem on the tasawwuf blog of my sister on the path, Maryam It is beautiful and with its words it captures the impossibility of capturing the Ineffable, yet we can whisper the Names of the One and the soul can hear those words of love whispered from the silence of love, breath joining breath. Please go and visit Maryam’s site for more poems and thoughts on the Sufi path.

Thank you Maryam.

This one sings the most beautiful love songs.

This one lost his voice; but he writes them.

This one weeps while he recites.

This one can’t speak a word,

so he just weeps.

The sky seems to be listening,

some stars sparkle quicker than others;

I don’t close my eyes. I just watch

The wonder of the sound of voices.

Silent voices, in the dark,

whispering countless names.

I breath in, breath out,

with a name forever in my tongue,

my lips,

my throat.

I breath Your name,

exhale Your name,

in, out,

and the effect it has on my dreams

reminds me of those songs I hear,

the weeping that conforts the heart,

and the silent voices in the dark.

I don’t get tired of saying it.

I only get surprised.

Because once more letters, numbers, sounds,

dance a perfect dance,

saying, like a secret,

that life is death, that death is life,

that mixture is balance,

that Love comes through untouchable matter.

The one who sings has retreated himself.

And the one who weeps is tired.

The one who whispers is confused now.

As for me,

I am asleep.

And your name is my breath.

Maryam

Contemporary Sufi Poetry

This is a re-posting that was originally on my other blog, The Sufi Book and Music Blog but I thought it worth posting it here too as I get more readers here and contemporary Sufi poetry is definitely worth bringing to a wider audience.

If you do a Google search on Sufi poetry the results will most likely bring up a wealth of sites with information and examples of the masters of the art. Honoured and respected poets on the Sufi path who wrote about what they experienced and ‘tasted’ on the journey of return to unity with the One. It is a journey of longing and struggle in which all things are seen as the signs of God, including our own selves. Metaphors of love are commonly used in such poetry where the lover longs for union with the Beloved. We see this in the images of the nightingale singing to the rose or the moth drawn to the flame. There are many translations from the original languages in which this poetry was written, Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Urdu, to English. Some of these translations are more like free interpretations attempting to capture the spirit of a piece for contemporary readers. For example, the thirteenth century Sufi poet/mystic Jalaluddin Rumi is one of the most widely read poets in the United States today. But what about Sufi poetry written today by contemporary students on the Sufi path?

Very little contemporary Sufi poetry is published for a mainstream readership. There appears to be little publishing interest in contemporary Sufi writing. Yet many of today’s dervishes, like Sufis of old, still feel compelled to allow words to flow and the recent phenomenon of the blog provides a structure for that expression. Try some of the following blogs for poetry from the heart written today. Just click on the titles.

Knocking from Inside

Poems from the Edge of the Continent

The Wandering Troubadour

Court of Lions

Ecstatic Exchange

Gathering of Thoughts

Loving You

I love, I hurt, I learn, I love again

Am I foolish?

Every step is reckless,

Every caress attempts

To touch anew

The first innocence of hope

That I will return to You

Drunk in the Tavern

Europahütte Predawn View

Originally uploaded by Jeff Pang

Ah, we are all drunk in this tavern
for the innkeeper keeps our cups full
with the elixir of love, Hu!

Friends from the Unseen dwell here too
and give us a nudge when our eyes
alight on the summit ahead

With the wine of love that we imbibe
we look toward the light of dawn
and mount our steeds with daring tread

On this journey of love’s desire
The Beloved burns our hearts with fire
As across ice peaks we are led

Dancing in the Sky

Dancing in the sky

she moves gracefully

with the excited flow

of an astonished crowd

Tumbling to the edge

of day touching night

arabesque and pirouette

take her on a daring flight

Her heart skips

in rhythm with the sphere,

as her lover whispers

you are now and here

Yunus Emre and the Dervish Path

Yunus Emre was a great Sufi poet living in Anatolia in the fourteenth century at the same time as Jalaluddin Rumi. While Rumi wrote his glorious Mathnawi in Persian, Yunus Emre sang his poems in the Turkish vernacular of Anatolia. The following poem is about starting on the Sufi path. I love the humble humour with which Yunus speaks of himself.

Whoever is given the dervish path

May his posturing cease and may he shine.

May his breath become musk and amber.

May whole cities and homelands

gather fruit from his branches.

May his leaves be healing herbs for the sick.

May much good work be done in his shadow.

And among all the poets and nightingales

in the Friends garden,

may Yunus hop like a partridge.

Sufi Soul: Part 4

This is part four of the film, Sufi Soul, and William Dalrymple goes to the Pakistani province of Sindh to visit the shrine of Shah Abdul Latif. He was a poet-saint who died in 1752 and to this day his music is played every night at his shrine using a string instrument called the dambar which Shah Abdul Latif invented himself. Dalrymple also speaks to mullahs of a more recent movement influenced by Wahhabi ideas that are anti-music and anti-Sufi. However, a musician he speaks to says that the majority of the people of Pakistan understand their faith through Sufism, through its music, through dance, and true human interaction.

more about “Sufi Soul: Part 4“, posted with vodpod

Found in Translation: How a Thirteenth Century Islamic Poet Conquered America By Ryan Croken

A very thoughtful assessment of Coleman Barks translations of the poetry of Rumi put in the context of the climate in the USA of propaganda and militarism against Muslim countries. (Which will hopefully change with Obama). Click the link below to read the full article.

clipped from www.religiondispatches.org The best-selling poet in America today could never have known that someday there would be such a thing as America. Born over eight centuries ago in what is now Afghanistan, Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, a Sufi mystic, has traversed some rather astonishing cultural and temporal boundaries to become one of the most improbable leaders in American letters. A study of Rumi’s success, however, would not be complete without exploring the relationship between the poet and his most popular translator, Coleman Barks. Poetically, this is significant. But politically, it is momentous. Although something may have been lost in his “translations,” something more priceless has been found: in this American Rumi we have acquired a dazzlingly cogent ambassador of a slandered religion and a most unlikely cultural bridge that could not have come at a better time.

Gaza

Gaza

Originally uploaded by Bilal Mirza

Wait silently in the field
Do not scream
Wait silently and listen
To the empty stream

Wait silently with the crowd
Raise no fist
Wait silently and hear
The voices of the missed

Now break your silence
With the words
Emerging from broken hearts
Now shout and act
In remembrance of the pact
With the Compassionate One

Archery of Love

Archery and Fencing

Originally uploaded by Waponi

Today you might be shot
with the dart of love
and when the sharpness
of the pain tears the veils
in which you felt comfortable
don’t run …
don’t blame …
don’t fear …

but listen and hear
and find the courage to love
in your newly broken heart

Ramadhan Haiku

The night is silent!

Rain falls from a pregnant sky

heavy with blessings

Silent Heart

Silence wraps around me like a fog filled night

it constrains, holds me tight, like a vice

I cannot fight

I seek the silence of tranquillity

the indwelling presence of love’s light

and words spoken silently

with the breath of compassion

calming the heart’s fright

Touch of the Beloved

Hush! Be inwardly still as the wind blows

Allow its dance with you

And sway as a woman waltzing

In your purple robes

It is the touch of the Beloved

That through the breeze flows

Lover and Beloved: Layla and Majnun

Love was glowing in Majnun. When it burst into flames it also took hold of his tongue, the words streaming unbidden from his lips, verses strung together like pearls in a necklace. Carelessly, he cast them away … Was he not rich? Was he not free? Had he not severed the rope which keeps men tied together? (Nizami, 1966:126)

Conversation with a Hedgehog

Hedgehog

Originally uploaded by tristrambrelstaff

Conversation with a Hedgehog

Last night after midnight, as every night, I went outside to look at the sky. I like to gaze at the vastness of space and to see the stars and the moon before I sleep. It always brings a feeling of expansion that is very welcome after sitting and writing for so many hours at the laptop. When I lived in Andalucia every night was clear and there was little light pollution except for a faint glow above Granada in the distance, behind the Sierra Nevada. If there were clouds then they would often have extraordinary shapes, or be large and dramatic, but usually they left enough free patches of sky to see the stars shining brightly between them. English weather is very different. Blessed with plenty of rain that keeps this island green, flourishing, and very damp, the sky is often completely overcast with total cloud coverage. Although it is now mid-July the weather is more autumnal than summery and last night and when I looked into the sky last night there was nothing to be seen but cloud glowing faintly red from the city lights. So I looked down instead. At the grass beneath my feet, soft and covered in clover. I wandered to the middle of the garden and suddenly heard a noise over by the hedge. As quietly as possible I tiptoed over to its source. It was very dark but I could just about discern the shape of a hedgehog under the deep shadows of the apple tree. It was snorting and sniffling and appeared to be quite content. It had just finished a good meal put out for it every night by the owner of the house where I am lodging while doing my MA. I didn’t take a photo as the flash would probably frighten the hedgehog but I stood quietly reflecting on the spikiness of hedgehogs and what there is to learn from Allah swt, in this little creature who, like all of creation, is one of His signs. When I was back in my room and in front of my laptop I decided to do a Google search using the keywords SUFI * SYMBOL * ANIMALS. I found nothing about hedgehogs but some very interesting things did come up. The most interesting was a paper entitled, “The Sufi Trobar Clus and Spanish Mysticism: A Shared Symbolism” by Luce López-Baralt. This is all about the influence of Sufi symbolism on St. John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila through the continuing influence of Islamic mysticism in Al-Andalus (Spain). It is an excellent essay and well worth reading. The incredible thing was, Alhamdulillah, that this is exactly the research I need when I begin my doctoral thesis in September! I then had a moment of sudden realization concerning the hedgehog who had set me off on this search that brought such good and unexpected results, its prickles are potent pointers that led me to exactly the articles I need to read and Allah, swt, guides us in so many ways if we learn to listen.