Lips' language to lips' ears....by Rabindranath Tagore

Lips' language to lips' ears.
Two drinking each other's heart, it seems.

Two roving loves who have left home,
pilgrims to the confluence of lips.

Two waves rise by the law of love
to break and die on two sets of lips.

Two wild desires craving each other
meet at last at the body's limits.

Love's writing a song in dainty letters,
layers of kiss-calligraphy on lips.

Plucking flowers from two sets of lips
perhaps to thread them into a chain later.

This sweet union of lips
is the red marriage-bed of a pair of smiles.

~ Rabindranath Tagore

When the heart becomes whole...by Rumi

When the heart becomes whole, 
it will know the flavors of falsehood and truth. 

When Adam's greed for the forbidden fruit increased, 
it robbed his heart of health. 

Discernment flies
from one who is drunken with desire.

He who puts down that cup
lightens the inner eye,
and the secret is revealed.

~ Rumi
Mathnawi II: 2738-2743
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Daylight"
Threshold Books, 1994

The deliciousness of milk and honey 
is the reflection of the pure heart:

From that heart the sweetness 
of every sweet thing is derived.

The heart is the substance,
and the world the accident.

How should the heart’s shadow
be the object of the heart’s desire?

Is that pure heart the heart that is
enamored of riches or power,

or is submissive to this black earth
and water of the body,

or to vain fancies it worships in the darkness
for the sake of fame?

The heart is nothing
but the Sea of Light.

Is the heart the place of vision
of God–and then blind?

~ Rumi
Mathnavi III, 2265-9

When I see your face...by Rumi

When I see your face, 
the stones start spinning.

You appear. 
All studying wanders.
I lose my place.

Water turns pearly.
Fire dies down and does not consume.

In your presence I do not want
what I thought I wanted,
those three little hanging lamps.

Inside your face the ancient manuscripts
seem like rusty mirrors.
You breathe, and new shapes appear.

The music of a desire as widespread as spring
begins to move like a great wagon.

Drive slowly.
Some of us walking alongside are lame.

~ Rumi
A Year with Rumi
Daily Readings
By Coleman Barks