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Out beyond ideas

of wrong-doing and right-doing,

there is a field.

I'll meet you there.



When the soul lies down in that grass

the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase

each other

doesn't make any sense







There is some kiss we want with

our whole lives, the touch of

spirit on the body. Seawater

begs the pearl to break its shell.

And the lily, how passionately

it needs some wild darling! At

night, I open the window and ask

the moon to come and press its

face against mine. Breathe into

me. Close the language- door and

open the love window. The moon

won't use the door, only the window











What was said to the rose that made it open was said to me here in my chest.

What was told the cypress that made it strongand straight,

what was whispered the jasmine so it is what it is,

whatever made sugarcane sweet,

whatever was said to the inhabitants of the town of Chigil inTurkestan that makes them so handsome,

whatever lets the pomegranate flower blushlike a human face,

that is being said to me now.

I blush.

Whatever put eloquence in language, that's happening here.

The great warehouse doors open;

I fill with gratitude,

chewing a piece of sugarcane,

in love with the one to whom every that belongs!





On the day I die, when I'm being carried toward the grave, don't weep.

Don't say, He's gone! He's gone. Death has nothing to do with going away.

The sun sets and the moon sets, but they're not gone.

Death is a coming together.

The tomb looks like prison, but it's really release into union.

The human seed goes down in the gound like a bucket into the well where Joseph is.

It grows and comes up full of some unimagined beauty.

Your mouth closes here and immediately opens with a shout of joy there.