Poems Shared at our UK Retreat

Download a PDF file of the poems HERE

One Day the Sun Admitted

One day the sun admitted,
I am just a shadow.
I wish I could show you
The Infinite Incandescence
That has cast my brilliant image!
I wish I could show you,
When you are lonely or in darkness,
The astonishing Light
Of your own Being!

Hafiz  (offered by Gayan)

My Sweet, Crushed Angel

You have
not danced so badly, my dear,
trying to hold hands with the Beautiful One.

You have waltzed with great style, my sweet, crushed angel,
to have ever neared God’s heart at all.

Our Partner is notoriously difficult to follow, and even His
best musicians are not always easy to hear.

So what if the music has stopped for a while.
So what if the price of admission to the Divine is out of reach tonight.

So what, my sweetheart, if you lack the ante to gamble for real love.

The mind and the body are famous for holding the heart ransom,
but Hafiz knows the Beloved’s eternal habits. Have patience,
for He will not be able to resist your longings
and charms for long.

You have not danced so badly, my dear,
trying to kiss the Magnificent
One.

You have actually waltzed with tremendous style,
my sweet, O my sweet,
crushed

angel

Hafiz  (offered by Lynn)

How To Belong Be Alone

It all begins with knowing
nothing lasts forever,
so you might as well start packing now.
In the meantime,
practice being alive.

There will be a party
where you’ll feel like
nobody’s paying you attention.
And there will be a party
where attention’s all you’ll get.
What you need to do
is to remember
to talk to yourself
between these parties.

And,
again,
there will be a day,
— a decade —
where you won’t
fit in with your body
even though you’re in
the only body you’re in.

You need to control
your habit of forgetting
to breathe.

Remember when you were younger
and you practiced kissing on your arm?
You were on to something then.
Sometimes harm knows its own healing
Comfort knows its own intelligence.
Kindness too.
It needs no reason.

There is a you
telling you another story of you.
Listen to her.

Where do you feel
anxiety in your body?
The chest? The fist? The dream before waking?
The head that feels like it’s at the top of the swing
or the clutch of gut like falling
& falling & falling and falling
It knows something: you’re dying.
Try to stay alive.

For now, touch yourself.
I’m serious.

Touch your
self.
Take your hand
and place your hand
some place
upon your body.
And listen
to the community of madness
that
you are.

You are
such an
interesting conversation.

You belong
here.

Pádraig Ó Tuama (offered by Ihsan)

Today love has completely gutted me

Today love has completely gutted me.
I’m lying in the market like a
Filleted grouper,

Speechless,
Every desire and sinew absolutely silent
But I am still so fresh.

Everything is now the same to me.
Listen:

The touch of a beautiful woman
As she lifts me near,
Drawing my scent into her body;
She thinks about taking me home.

The touch of a wondrous fly
Drinking my vital fluids
Through a strange shaped flute,

The sun laying its radiant gaze against my cheek,
Human voices and the breeze from a passing
Horse’s tail,

All send miraculous currents into
My world.

God’s beauty has split me wide open.
Throw me on a scale,
Wrap me in cloth,
Bring me home

Lift a piece of knowledge to your lips
So I can melt inside you
And sing.

Hafiz (offered by Phil)

Unimaginable Tenderness

That in me which is unbroken

is unreachable.

So it is I circle my sorrow

endlessly.

There is nothing to be done

but bear witness,

Until the moment comes when

sooner or later,

restless truth, 

relentless as sea on salt

and sand,

will blow through,

leaving nothing but a husk

infused with an unimaginable

tenderness.

Pray Without Ceasing

If you want to live fully

pray without ceasing

and find out what that means.

The half life is not interested

in gods,

but in distraction.

When the knowing comes

Like the dawn rising out of

The seeming nowhere

Prayer and prostration are the only things

Of  any meaning,

and so beloveds 

you will be prepared

A Permanent Patience

Central to all that turns

Is a permanent patience

Sooner or later to deliver up

An internal yield to

The indwelling Christ

And with it

The end of all longing

I carry the sky within me

So it is 

I cannot get a fix

On identity.

No matter 

no one can really

A temporary name will do

Surrounded by love

The sky can bless

to its heart content

And in so doing

Make this a life

Worth living

Imagine

About This

that requires All

I am silence 

Imagine

A divine intensity

Like springtime in

England. 

An invisible indiscriminate 

Might

whose passion greens

winter shadows

and sweetens the grass. 

Like that

Within

Imagine.

Ayaz (previous 4 poems are from his forthcoming collection)

i thank You God for this amazing

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e.e Cummings (offered by Maud)

Human Being

Hua. Huing. Humus. Human. Humus. Huing. Hu.

Non being, then being, then non-being.

Yet always becoming.

Hu becoming Huing, becoming Humus, becoming Human, becoming humus

Huing Hu

Here.

Sharif 

Mirror

In our unknowing self, we often view

The preening glass.

What mask of respectability

Shall I wear today?

What is this reflective image I see?

Skin-deep beauty, worn by time;

Inside waits to emerge as being.

Being looks into the mirror

And sees non-being.

I am not, what I think I am.

But my soul leaps for joy

At the meeting of the other.
Namaste!

This is who I am!

As I look through the eyes

Of an anam cara,

I can see my original state,

Without identity or image.

Don’t look for me in a human shape.

I am inside your looking.

No room for form with love so strong.

The Greatest Gift

To learn that joy is experienced

By those that give, without expectation

Of any reward or gratitude from the receiver,

Is a valuable lesson in life.

To give without return is a selfless act

Of love, a humbling emptying of ego,

Being completely other-centred, and aware

That all possessions are only temporary.

Of course, not all gifts are substantial;

Indeed, the greatest gifts are of the spirit.

A knowing that body and mind are also temporary,

We need to empty ourselves of self.

Upon realisation that we are the I Am,

The greatest, the most complete gift

We can give to others, is of ourself.

Our attention. The present is the presence.

The gift of our true Being, at this moment ~ 

The only moment there is ~ now.

An act of pure love.

Loving attention ~ the greatest gift.

Bob (from his collections The Golden Thread Volumes 1 and 2). These are two poems Bob planned to read but didn’t have a chance.