MECHTHILD OF MADGEBURG: 1207-1282
Of all that God has shown me
I can speak just the smallest word,
No more than a honeybee
Takes on his foot
From an overspilling jar
MATSUO BASHO: JAPAN: 1686
Famous haiku poet: Nature poems with 17 syllables: 5-7-5
The Frog:
The old pond
A frog jumps in
Splash. (Silence)
Kyoto
In Kyoto
Hearing the cuckoo
I long for Kyoto
KING DAVID:1000BC: PSALM 23
KIngdom of Israel
The Lord’s my shepherd; I’ll not want
He maketh me to lie down
In pastures green
He leadeth me
The quiet waters beside
He restoreth my soul;
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness
Even for his own name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley
Of the shadow of death,
RUMI: Persian: 1207: Lift Now the Lid (I)
Lift now the lid of the jar of heaven
Pour cupbearers, the wine of the invisible,
The name and sign of what has no sign!
Pour it abundantly, it is you who enrich the soul;
Make the soul drunk, and give it wings!
Come again, always fresh one, and teach
All our cupbearers their sacred art!
Be spring jetting from a heart of stone!
Break the pitcher of soul and body!
Make joyful all lovers of wine!
Foment a restlessness in the heart
Rumi: Lift Now the Lid (II)
Of the one who thinks only of bread!
Bread’s a mason of the body’s prison,
Wine a rain for the garden of the soul.
Open those that contemplate the invisible
So no mosques or temples or idols remain,
Open those that contemplate the invisible
So ‘this’ or ‘that’ is drowned in His fire.
I’ve tied the ends of the earth together,
Lift now the lid of the jar of heaven.
Close those eyes that see only faults,
Sufis connected wine and dance with the ecstasy of divine adoration and spiritual belief
Rumi
KABIR: INDIA: 1500
Kabir was a Sufi scholar and mystic from India. He claimed that the following poem is a key to the Universe. See if you can work out what he meant by this. 
Brother, I’ve seen some
Astonishing sights:
A lion keeping watch
Over pasturing cows;
A mother delivered
After he son was;
A guru prostrated
Before his disciple;
Fish spawning
On treetops;
A cat carrying away
A dog;
A gunny-sack
Driving a bullock-cart;
A buffalo going out to graze,
Sitting on a horse;
A tree with its branches in the earth,
Its roots in the sky.
A tree with flowering roots.
I will fear no evil
For thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
Kaveh Akbar: Editor: The Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse, 2023
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