I wake to love
I wake to love you even if
The words rest not on my lips
But are hid deep within.
I wake to love you with a tear
To think you far away from here
And sigh away the sun.
I wake to love you and none
Beside, even if I must hide
The tears I am forced to cry.
I wake to love you and begin
To wonder if you wake
To love me.
I wake to love you
With no choice
In waking or loving.
I wake to love you
With the hope
That one day
I wake to you.
— Rafael Alejandro Jara.
Majnun would stare at the full moon.
When asked why, he replied: maybe Layla might look, too, and our glances meet.
The Garden
Walking within they do not know it,
Planted at their feet, the buried memories;
They only see a garden, bushes, trees
Not the secrets so delicately knit.
The flowers are silent to them, silent;
They do not say a word, but quietly
They are looked at, and admired quietly,
They whisper nothing and nothing relent.
Yet for me all the flowers keep you near,
The orchids and the heliconia,
Bromeliad and bougainvillea;
The plants you love that I in turn hold dear.
It is a living temple wherein
I come to find you; you smell of jasmine.
— Rafael Alejandro Jara.
How I swoon! pale as the light of the moon
Remembering the fragrance of a rose!
“For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.”
— William Shakespeare.
You disobey the Divine, yet claim love for Him
This is impossible, illogical reasoning.
If your love were true, you would certainly obey
For the lover to the Beloved is ever obedient.
يا نسيم الريح قولي للرشا لم يزدني الوِرد إلا عطشا
لي حبيب حبه وسط الحشا إن يشأ يمشي على خدي مشى
روحه روحي وروحي روحه إن يشأ شئت وإن شئت يشأ
Salma - Al Kauthar.
From Tarjuman al ashwaq by Sheikh Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi.
The verses of the poem are alternated with a chorus singing tahlil (la ilaha illa Allah).
Greeting to Salma and to those who dwell in the preserve,
for it behoves one who loves tenderly like me to give greeting.
They journeyed when the darkness of night had let down its curtains, and I said to her,
“Pity a passionate lover, outcast and distraught,”
And she said, “Is it not enough for him that I am in his heart
and that he beholds me at every moment? Is it not enough?”
Ya Wadûd.
In love, young and old are the same.
In love, loss and gain are the same.
In love, the worlds are the same.
In love, autumn and spring are the same.
Its down is up and up is down.
The earth and the heavens are the same.
The place of love is a circle,
Each spot is equal to the other.
If the Beloved scorns you or welcomes you,
it’s all the same.
In the tradition of love, to die
is the same as gaining eternal life.
O best of those whose bones are buried in the deep earth,
And from whose fragrance the depth
and the height have become sweet,
May I be the ransom for a grave which thou inhabit,
And in which are found purity, bounty and munificence!
