[Sunlight] So We Can Have What We Want

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You wear coarse wool, but you¹re a king,
as the soul's energy hides, as love

remembers. You enter this room in a human
shape and as the atmosphere we breathe.

You are the central pole through the nine
levels connecting them and us to absolute

absence. So that we can have what we want,
you give failure and frustration. You want

only the company of the lion and the lion
cub, no wobbly legs. That man there, you

suggest, might remove his head before
entering the temple. Then he could listen

without ears to a voice that say, My
creature. A month of walking the road, you

make that distance in one day. Never mind
gold and silver payments. When you feel

generous, give your head. My beauty,
you have no need for a guide. The one

who follows and the one who leads are
inseparable, as the moon and the circle

around it. An Arab drags his camel town
to town. You go through your troubles

and changing beliefs, both no different from
the moon moving across or basil growing

and getting cut for a bouquet. It doesn't
matter you're been lost. The hoopoe is

still looking for you. It's another
beginning, my friend, this waking in a

morning with no haze, and help coming
without your asking! A glass submerged

is turning inside the wine. With grief
waved away, sweet gratefulness arrives.

-- Ghazal (Ode) 2935
Version by Coleman Barks, with Nevit Ergin
"The Glance"
Viking-Penguin, 1999

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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

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[Sunlight] So We Can Have What We Want