Rumi Poems
It is amazing to find a 13th century poet
that understands the depth of the human condition like Rumi does.

Here are some of his writings:

Don't complain about autumn.
Walk with grief like a good friend.
Listen to what he says.
Sometimes the cold and dark of a cave
give the opening we most want.

Your intelligence is marvelously intimate.
It's not in front of you or behind,
or to the left or the right.
Now try, my friend, to describe how near
is the creator of your intellect!
Intellectual searching will not find
the way to that king!
The movement of your finger
is not separate from your finger...
Don't theorize about essence!  Alll speculations
are just more layers of covering.
Human beings love coverings!
They think the designs on the curtains
are what's being concealed.
Observe the wonders as they occur around you.
Don't claim them.
Feel the artistry moving through,
and be silent.

~Rumi poems
These pains that you feel are messengers.
Listen to them.  Turn them to sweetness...

Let yourself be silently drawn
by the stronger pull of what you really love.
~excerpts from Rumi's writings

More Rumi Poems

Picture
Quietness:
Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.


    You're covered with thick cloud.
    Slide out the side. Die,
    and be quiet.  Quietness is the surest sign
    that you've died.
    Your old life was a frantic funning
    from silence.
    The speechless full moon
    comes out now.


...Ordinary eyes categorize
human beings, That one is a Zoroastrian.
This one, Muslim.
Walk instead with the other vision given you,
your first eyes.  Don't squint,
and don't stare blankly like a vulture.
Those who love fire fall in the fire.
A fly slips from the edge into the whey.

If you are in love with the infinite,
why grieve over earth washing away in the rain?

Bow to the essence in a human being.
A desert drinks war-blood,
but if it knew this secret,
springs would rise, rose gardens.

Don't be content with judging people good and bad.
Grow out of that..

~Rumi poems

...I have a thirsty fish in me that can never find enough
of what it's thirsty for!

Show me the way to the ocean!
Break these half-measures,
these small containers.

All this fantasy
and grief.

Let my house be drowned in the wave
that rose last night out of the courtyard
hidden in the center of my chest...

...I don't want learning, or dignity,
or respectability.

I want this music and this dawn...
The grief-armies assemble,
but I'm not going with them.

This is how it always is when I finish a poem.

A great silence overcomes me,
And I wonder why I ever thought
to use language.
~Rumi poem

...What hurts you, blesses you.
Darkness is your candle.
Your boundaries are your quest...

You must have shadow and light source both.
Listen, and lay your head under the tree of awe...
The soul lives there in the silent breath...
~more excerpts from Rumi poems