Zikr Allah, An Armor of Roses, Saturday, January 27, 7:30 pm

 

 

AN ARMOR OF ROSES

Take January's advice. Stack wood.
Weather inevitably turns cold, and you

make fires to stay healthy. Study
the grand metaphor of this yearly work.

Wood is a symbol for absence. Fire
for your love of God. We burn form

to warm the soul. Soul loves winter
for that, and accepts reluctantly the

comfort of spring with its elegant,
proliferating gifts. All part of the

plan, fire becoming ash becoming
garden soil becoming mint, willow and

tulip. Love looks like fire. Feed
yourself into it. Be the fireplace and

the wood. Bravo, for this metallurgy
that makes a needle from an iron ingot.

Calm fire now, for the moth a window;
for you an armor of roses! Pharaoh

disolves like yogurt in water. Moses
comes to the top like oil. Fine Arabians

carry royalty. Nags, the sacks of dried
dung. Language is an annoying clatter

in the mill of meaning. A silent river
turns the millstone. The word-grains get

noisily dumped in the tray, pulverized
under the stone as gossip. Let this

poem be thus ground. Let me go
back to the lovefire that refines the

pure gold of my friend, Shamsuddin.

-- Version by Coleman Barks, with Nevit Ergin
"The Glance"
Viking-Penguin, 1999

 

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Zikr Allah,An Armor of Roses

Join the Columbus Sufi Circle,
Saturday, January 27, 7:30 pm1000 Urlin Ave. 1809, Grandview Heights OH 43212
Everybody is welcome, we will sing, chant, read poetry, eat sweets.

Contact Hilal at 614-446-3337 or hilal1001@sbcglobal.net