Sufi poetry: Poems by Annemarie Schimmel

[сова]

may I add a couple of more of Annemarie Schimmel's poetry...


LOVE? DO I LOVE?

Love? Do I love?
I do not know such words.

I close my eyes, and am your flute,
Long for your life-bestowing breath to teach me
to sing your praise.

I close my eyes, and am your harp,
reclining on your breast.
Your fingers which caress
My highstrung nerves make me able
to sing your praise.

I close my eyes, and am your lute.
I listen to your song, sometimes responding,
if you wish so.

With my eyes closed
I see you dancing with the whirling skies.
My heart: the drum.

Love? Do I love?
Take all the instruments,
throw them away and burn them, like wild rue,
The fire will lift up its hands in prayer,
The wind will carry off the selfless ashes
Into nowhere.

There I shall dance with you.


SEE, I TRIED EVERYTHING

"See, I tried everything, went everywhere,
But never found a friend as dear as you;
I drank from all the fountains, tried the grapes,
But never tasted wine as sweet as you."

I read a hundred learned manuscripts:
In every letter I saw only you.
I washed away the letters with my tears;
A mirror was the shining page for you.

I heard your voice in every rustling breeze:
The snow, the grass were lovely veils for you;
I dived into the ocean without shore:
The lustrous pearls reflected only you.

Then came the storm;
The garden of my heart
Was shiv'ring in the cold, it's leaves were shed.
There was the desert
And the barren cloud,
And silence. And
      the sun at midnight - you.



Annemarie Schimmel, "Nightingales Under the Snow".

[wayter]

Poems by Annemarie Schimmel
 

Thirst

"Make thirsty me, O friend, give me no water!
Let me so love that sleep flees from my door!"
         Yes, sleep flees, if he sees the burning eyelids,
         He would be drowned if he would cross the sea
         of tears; he would be poisoned
         if he should dare to drink
         That potent wine which you
         Poured in the gobler of my eyes:
         Those eyes which once beheld your radians face
         And try to mirror it on every tear...
         ...Those eyes which are a veil.

Make me more thirsty, friend, give me no water-
My thirst is proof that you are thirsty, too...

* * *

 

I Know

I know
There are no birch trees in Konya
They grow further north
under the silvery sky
mirrored in brownish brooks
in the Sarmathian steppe
or in upstate New York...
But I know
that Maulana said:
        Under the shade of your tresses
        so lovely and so cool
        my heart slept full of peace like
        the dust beneath a tree...
Dust out of which
grass will grow
to praise your mildness
heather will grow
to sing your beauty
(taking its hue from my hood-stained tears)
dust which one day
will be covered by gold
when you, dervish-birch,
will shed your leaves
to attain perfect peace,
poverty, purity, love
Only your naked limbs stand there, on this silvery sky
and the wild grouse greet you
passing in winter nights into homelessness.
And I, the dust at your feet,
protect you , praying till spring...

* * *

Maulana Spoke

Maulana spoke:
         The lover
         weaves satin and brocade
         from tears, O friend, to spread it
         one day beneath your feet...
Only from tears, Maulana?
                            Every breath
Forms the weft of the endless fabric of love.

With every breath I weave the brocade of your name,
Golden letters inscribed in the satin-robe of my blood.
O, what garments have I prepared for you,
taking the ruddy dawn and the fist green silk of spring,
star-embroidered velvet, and feather-light wool!
Every thought embellishes your name, O my friend,
Weaving into the fabric the turquoise domes of Iran,
Dyeing the yarn in the pearl-studded depth of the sea.

Every pulse bears the drum of primordial love
Every breath is the flute of impossible hope
Every goblet is filled with you

          And I weave
          ever new silken garments of words
                                                       only to hide you.

* * *

Remember

Remember?
There were some unicorns
in the forest of yore.
Playful and white
they walked through the waning moon
in early dawn.
Lilies grew out of their steps.

But, dear, once you smiled at them
and they bowed at your feet,
melting like dew,
And I
cried
envying them.

 

Nightingales Under the Snow,by Annemarie Schimmel, 1994.

Poems by Annemarie Schimmel

Publisher: Khaniqahi Nimatullahi Pubns; ; 2nd edition (September 1995)
ISBN: 0933546548