Rumi Soul Houses

Who is this king

that forms another king out of the ground,

who for the sake of two beggars

makes himself a beggar?

Who is this with his hand out

saying, Please, give just a little,

so I can give you a kingdom.

He heals.  He enlivens.

He tells the water to boil

and the steam to fade into the air.

He makes this dying world eternal.

His greatest alchemy

is how he undoes the binding

that keeps love from breathing deep.

He loosens the chest.

With no tool he fashions where we live.

Do not grieve for your rusty, iron heart.

He will polish it to a steel mirror.

As as you are being lowered into the ground,

closed away from firends, don’t cry.

He turns the ants and the snakes

into beautiful new companions.

Every second he changes cruelty

to loyal friendship.

Remember the proverb, Eat the grapes.

Do not keep talking about the garden.

Eat the grapes.

From a rough stone ledge

come a hundred marble fountains.

Out of unconditioned emptiness

comes this planet with all its qualities.

Lakewater over there.

Out of one huge NO

comes a chorus of yeses.

Rivers of light flow from human eyes,

and consider your ears, where language

alchemizes into amber.

He gives the soul a house,

then another and another.

He descends into the dirt

and makes it majesty.

Be silent now.

Say fewer and fewer praise poems.

Let yourself become living poetry.