We are holy

You are the child of God's
hoIy gift of life.
     
You come from me,
but you are not me.
  
Your soul and your body
are your own,...
  
and yours to do with
as you wish.

* * * * * * * *

Are you looking for me? I am in the next seat.
My shoulder is against yours.
you will not find me in the stupas, not in Indian shrine
rooms, nor in synagogues, nor in cathedrals:
not in masses, nor kirtans, not in legs winding
around your own neck, nor in eating nothing but
vegetables.

When you really look for me, you will see me
instantly --
you will find me in the tiniest house of time.

Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God?
He is the breath inside the breath.

-Kabir

* * * * * * * *


Tired of Speaking Sweetly

Love wants to reach out and manhandle us,
Break all our teacup talk of God.


If you had the courage and
Could give the Beloved His choice, some nights,
He would just drag you around the room
By your hair,
Ripping from your grip all those toys in the world
That bring you no joy.


Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly
And wants to rip to shreds
All your erroneous notions of truth


That make you fight within yourself, dear one,
And with others,


Causing the world to weep
On too many fine days.


God wants to manhandle us,
Lock us inside of a tiny room with Himself
And practice His dropkick.


The Beloved sometimes wants
To do us a great favor:


Hold us upside down
And shake all the nonsense out.


But when we hear
He is in such a "playful drunken mood"
Most everyone I know
Quickly packs their bags and hightails it
Out of town.

-Hafiz

* * * * * * * *


The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere,
they're in each other all along.

- Rumi


* * * * * * * *


Drunk as drunk on turpentine
From your open kisses,
Your wet body wedged
Between my wet body and the strake
Of our boat that is made of flowers,
Feasted, we guide it - our fingers
Like tallows adorned with yellow metal -
Over the sky's hot rim,
The day's last breath in our sails.

Pinned by the sun between solstice
And equinox, drowsy and tangled together
We drifted for months and woke
With the bitter taste of land on our lips,
Eyelids all sticky, and we longed for lime
And the sound of a rope
Lowering a bucket down its well. Then,
We came by night to the Fortunate Isles,
And lay like fish
Under the net of our kisses.

- Neruda


* * * * * * * *

Soundtrack: Govinda, Erotic Rhythms of the Earth
Visual: a movie - one of my favourites.