WHEN SPACE IS NOT RATIONED....by Hafiz

For a while
The eagle in flight might say,

'Look dear, I am home
Space is no longer being rationed.'

For a while you might feel
I am complete,

When the touch from another upon certain
Of your fields

Has the power to dissolve all that
Is known.

Wholeness, I think
Draws its life somewhere where the breathing
Stops,

Somewhere where the mind cradles light,
Where the only senses that remain
Blush and stumble

If they try to speak with our language so new
It is still trying to Invent,

Still shaping
Its first intelligible sound,
Still sculpting its first true image of
God."

~ Hafiz
From "The Gift" by Hafiz, translated by Daniel Ladinsky
(WHEN SPACE IS NOT RATIONED)

Ah my friend, what have you brought me ?...by Rumi

Ah my friend, 
what have you brought me ?

You know 
a traveler should not arrive empty handed 
at the door of a friend like me. 
That's going to the grinding stone
without your wheat.

He will ask at the Resurrection,
'Did you bring Me a present? Did you forget?
Did you think you wouldn't see Me?'

Beloved kept teasing,
"Lets have it. I want my gift!"

The Friend began,
"You can't imagine how
I've looked for something for you.
Nothing seemed appropriate.
You don't take gold down into a goldmine, or a
drop of water to the Sea of Oman!

Everything I thought of was like
bringing cumin seed to Kirmanshah where
cumin comes from.

You have all seeds in your barn.
You even have my love and my soul,
so I can't even bring those.

I've brought you a mirror.
Look at yourself, and remember me."

He took the mirror out from his robe
where he was hiding it.

What is the mirror of being?
Non-being.

Always bring a mirror of non-existence
as a gift.
Any other present is foolish.

~ Rumi
Mathnawi, I,
Version by Coleman Barks
(Developed from the translation by Nicholson)
"The Essential Rumi"
HarperSanFrancisco, 1995