"To be in this world but not part of it ..." kissman's Profile

I don't know. I don't know what to write. Being a salary-man Malaysian, I don't travel much. But boy, I wish I could. To think of going places and absorbing the culture there. I could imagine myself in Konya, Turkey and immersed in the dancing of the Mevlevi dervishes there. Or somewhere in India listening to the Buddhist's chants.

So to hope. Someday we all will. Till then, here are two poems I like at the moment.

Lo! 'tis a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.
Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly-
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Woe!
That motley drama–oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore,
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.
But see, amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!–it writhes!–with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.
Out–out are the lights–out all!
And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
While the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

Haqqani Rabbani, Indonesian Whirling Dervishes

Look at me! I will be your intimate in the grave on
the night you pass from shop and home.
You will hear my salaams in the tomb and then
you will know that you were never hidden from my sight.
Behind your veil I am like your intellect and
awareness--at the time of joy and happiness, at the time of
suffering and infirmity.
When you hear the voice of a friend on that
lonely night, you will be delivered from the striking of the
serpents and the fear of the ants.
The winesickness of Love will bring you a gift
in the grave: wine, witnesses, candles, kabobs, sweetmeat, and
incense.
When we light intellect's lamp, what a shouting
and uproar will arise from the dead in their graves!
The dust of the graveyard will be bewildered by
the shouting and uproar, by the sound of the Resurrection's
drum, by the tremendous tumult of the Uprising.
He whose shroud is torn apart will cover his
ears in terror--but what are brain and ears next to the blast of
the Trumpet?
Wherever you look you will see my form
whether you look at yourself or at that noise and confusion.
Flee from cross-eyed vision and straighten out
your eyes for on that day, the evil eye will be far from my
beauty!
Beware! Beware! Gaze not at my human form!
Make no mistake, for the spirit is terribly subtle and Love
terribly jealous!
What place is this for form?! Were the felt
covering even a hundred fold, the radiance of the spirit's
mirror would show its banner.*
Strike the drums and wind your way to the
minstrels in the city! The young men of Love's way are
holding a day of purification.
If the blind men had sought out God instead of
morsels and money, not one of them would be left sitting on
the edge of the moat.
Why have you opened a tale bearer's house in
our city? Be a shut-mouth tale bearer, like light!** (D 1145)

-- Translation by William C. Chittick
"The Sufi Path of Love" (pp. 347-348, 374)
SUNY Press, Albany, 1983\