The Shop

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by Rumi


Lightning falling on the helpless,
a surge of pearl out of the rock
covering the rock, this life torn into a hundred pieces,
and one of those pieces a ticket
to let me back into my life.

A spirit world divided into eight sections, one a scroll.
Eight scrolls in the parchment of your face.
What kind of bird am I becoming, kneeling like a camel,
pecking at the fire like an ostrich?

You and I have worked in the same shop for years.
Our loves are great fellow workers.
Friends cluster there, and every moment we notice
a new light coming out in the sky.
Invisible, yet taking form, like Christ coming through
Mary. In the cradle, God.
Shams, why this inconsistency
that we live with love,
and yet we run away?


Coleman Barks trans.

For more poems by Hafiz and Rumi..

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