Innocently enough, it began.
A gentle hum
of sweet innocent kinship
My light shimmers in your eyes,
because I reflect your brilliance in my smile.
You fear I will devour you entirely,
and I fear that I shall lose myself and
succumb to your charms.
We both say we love God,
yet we both know our lips betray
our true intent.
We lie.
We feel ashamed at our weakness,
that we have made each other our god,
and the cravings increase with each nuance,
each sigh, each healing glance,
each murmur in the throat,
each careful caress of the pliant hand.
This tenderness will be my death.
I try to run away from it,
leaving my sandals at the tombs of the saints:
resting upon the bloodied, purified sands.
I cannot hide,
the people on the streets can smell
the scent of my devotion a mile away.
The smoke of ardour is hardly ever hidden well.
“There goes the crazy one, majnooni:
she has lost her senses.
She glides upon the earth,
we cannot see her footprints anywhere.
She stands in the sun,
yet casts no shadow upon the earth.
The junoon has her fermenting all over.
This young, shy, naive grape
is fermenting.
She is becoming wine,
a deep ruby red,
in just a fleeting instant of being
crushed under Love’s feet.
She has now become intoxicated
with her own image of beauty,
charm, tenderness,
peace and tranquillity.
Let us go near and drink of her nectar.
Let us become immortal within her deep lilac flame.
Let us become divine just by gazing upon her
as she gazes at the stars in the dark, still nights.”
When you run too far from the beloved,
the beloved becomes tired of chasing after you.
It is easier to love someone who
knows how to receive it.
The mirrors all shatter,
and distort the truth
for even more lies.
And, years after a continuous
falling back asleep and being
shaken awake,
until the veins bleed,
the chosen woman finally
understands that the divine is
a benevolent, yet jealous
benefactor.
Anything that takes her away from Him
is seized without warning,
leaving a trail of regret, harsh words,
unforgiveness,
and unfulfilled vows.
She now prolongs her prostrations upon the dust.
And then… she becomes dust,
crushed under the weight
of aeons of solitude and confusion
until finally, she looks up bewildered and unruffled
and miraculously,
instead of crying tears of blood,
her vision has been cleared with saltwater
and everywhere,
she can see the One who needs no one
but Himself to sustain
the All.
The forms change, their essence remains.
Slowly, slowly, her heart opens again
and the Beloved is Her, her savior is within Her –
and They are magnetically drawn to her once again.
Yet, this time, it matters not what They do.
The repeated patterns are evident, amusing,
both those of Hers and those of the Other.
As long as she reminds herself to remain true
to Herself and her Lord,
she will remain safe from further humiliation.
She may have to pinch herself every day
to remind herself.
Yes, her battered feet have traveled upon shards and shards of rock,
her skin has been ravaged by the unforgiving desert winds
far too long
for her to now forget Who She Is
and revert to her former state.
Her gift to them is the knack to love with a sincere
o p e n n e s s
that is also her very protection
To be loved sincerely and truly in return,
with Them seeing Her as Her truth.
This is God’s grace.
To demonstrate the profound good opinion God has of you,
to reflect His deep, soft, undulating
sweetness,
so that your curled bud may
unfurl into its full glory.
We have written it all in a Manifest book
Yet, she is the Book,
the writer and
the reader.
As is each of us.
A mirror has mirrors too.
When everyone remembers
they are their unique version of the light,
and each of very high value,
how can any sense of inferiority
or superiority exist?
Open your palms to receive
Your own light through this vessel.
Let the words scrawled upon the page
refresh your eyes,
so you may see…
And although she grieved,
those she lost came back to her
in a different form.
All the more dear.
For their worth has been realized,
as has her own worth been realized.
And, this time, We shall remind ourselves sternly
We do not gamble or trade the love of our Beloved,
for mere trinkets any longer: a glass of wine,
a life of companionship and mercy,
many a whispered word of romantic endearment,
respectability,
conformity,
functionality…
Be the state you wish to feel.
Be Love, then you will experience it.
Be Peace,
then you will exude it,
causing their eyes to water at the sweetness
of willow,
of honeysuckle.
Be the healer,
the vessel, the channel:
then You will understand
Your true worth.
