A VESSEL & CONDUIT
<
ARCHETYPAL SONGINGS
ew
3:09 AM - 2/4/16
It will not last the night;
But ah,
my foes, and oh, my friends--
It gives a lovely light!
Edna St. Vincent Millay
https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/Frazer_uncg_0154D_10909.pdf
Each note is a need coming through one of us,
a passion, a longing-pain.
Remember the lips
where the wind-breath originated,
and let your note be clear.
Don't try to end it .
BE Your Note.
I'll show you how it's enough.
Go up on the roof at night
in the city of the soul.
Let Everyone climb on their roofs
and sing their notes!
Sing loud!
Rumi
in
Say I Am You
(translated by John Moyne and Coleman Barks)
http://www.songofhome.com/rumi.htm
Each body and soul is no one but me.
I pretend to be someone else so that I can enjoy watching all of me.
- Rumi
Listen to the story told by the reed,
of being separated.
"Since I was cut from the reedbed,
I have made this crying sound.
Anyone apart from someone he loves
understands what I say.
Anyone pulled from a source
longs to go back.
mingling in the laughing and grieving,
a friend to each, but few
will hear the secrets hidden
within the notes.
No ears for that.
Body flowing out of spirit,
spirit up from body: no concealing
that mixing. But it's not given us
to see the soul.
The reed flute
is fire, not wind. Be that empty."
Hear the love fire tangled
in the reed notes, as bewilderment
melts into wine.
to all who want the fabric torn
and drawn away.
The reed is hurt
and salve combining. Intimacy
and longing for intimacy, one
song.
A disastrous surrender
and a fine love, together. The one
who secretly hears this is senseless.
A tongue has one customer, the ear.
A sugarcane flute has such effect
because it was able to make sugar
in the reedbed. The sound it makes
is for everyone.
Days full of wanting,
let them go by without worrying
that they do. Stay where you are
inside such a pure, hollow note.
Every thirst gets satisfied except
that of these fish, the mystics,
who swim a vast ocean of grace
still somehow longing for it!
being nourished every day.
But if someone doesn't want to hear
the song of the reed flute,
it's best to cut conversation
short, say good-bye, and leave.
Rumi
Coleman Barks Translation
The Essential Rumi
Unable to say yes or no.
Then a stretcher will come from grace
to gather us up.
Rumi