A new book in our library - this time from Robyn at Provision Transylvania! Thank you!
The ecstatic, spiritual poetry of Rumi is more popular than ever, and The Essential Rumi continues to be far and away the top-selling title of all Rumi books.
The ecstatic, spiritual poetry of Rumi is more popular than ever, and The Essential Rumi continues to be far and away the top-selling title of all Rumi books.
Coleman Barks is a renowned poet and the bestselling author
of The Essential Rumi, The Soul of Rumi, Rumi: The Book of Love,
and The Drowned Book. He was prominently featured in both of Bill Moyers's
PBS television series on poetry, The Language of Life and Fooling
with Words. He taught English and poetry at the University of Georgia for
thirty years, and he now focuses on writing, readings, and performances. This
book is the culmination of over thirty years of Barks's work on Rumi's seminal
classic.
A Community of the Spirit
There is a community of the spirit.
Join it, and feel the delight
of walking in the noisy street,
and being the noise.
Drink all your passion,
and be a disgrace.
Close both eyes
to see with the other eye.
Open your hands,
if you want to be held.
Sit down in this circle.
Quit acting like a wolf, and feel
the shepherd's love filling you.
At night, your beloved wanders.
Don't accept consolations.
Close your mouth against food.
Taste the lover's mouth in yours.
You moan, "She left me.""He left me."
Twenty more will come.
Be empty of worrying.
Think of who created thought!
Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.
Flow down and down in always
widening rings of being.
There's a strange frenzy in my head,
of birds flying,
each particle circulating on its own.
Is the one I love everywhere?
Drunks fear the police,
but the police are drunk too.
People in this town love them both
like different chess pieces.
Join it, and feel the delight
of walking in the noisy street,
and being the noise.
Drink all your passion,
and be a disgrace.
Close both eyes
to see with the other eye.
Open your hands,
if you want to be held.
Sit down in this circle.
Quit acting like a wolf, and feel
the shepherd's love filling you.
At night, your beloved wanders.
Don't accept consolations.
Close your mouth against food.
Taste the lover's mouth in yours.
You moan, "She left me.""He left me."
Twenty more will come.
Be empty of worrying.
Think of who created thought!
Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.
Flow down and down in always
widening rings of being.
There's a strange frenzy in my head,
of birds flying,
each particle circulating on its own.
Is the one I love everywhere?
Drunks fear the police,
but the police are drunk too.
People in this town love them both
like different chess pieces.
---
"Perhaps the world's greatest spiritual poet--the gold of Rumipours down through Coleman's words. The words leap off thepage and dance!" -- -- Jack Kornfield, author of A Path with Heart
"Perhaps the world's greatest spiritual poet--the gold of Rumi pours down through Coleman's words. The words leap off the page and dance!" -- Jack Kornfield, author of A Path with Heart
"The Essential Rumi is a rare and precious book that will stir the hearts of Rumi devotees and win many new converts." -- Body Mind Spirit