Thanks for the poetry/spirituality, Turq, and I've wondered about
the origin of your posting name; I've always liked it.
These poems sound and feel so much like Rumi, and not just because
they're translated by Barks.
**
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>
>
> Some poems I enjoyed reading this afternoon, as
> translated by Coleman Barks. There is information
> about the author after the poems themselves.
>
> **************************************************
>
> Even the stars can be measured,
> their arrangments and influences.
>
> Her body can be lovingly touched,
> but not her deep longings.
>
> Those cannot be understood
> by science.
>
> **************************************************
>
> The ink of lovesongs
> washes off in the rain,
> but the love itself,
>
> that which cannot be
> written down, stays
> inside *here*
>
> **************************************************
>
> I listen intently
> to what my teacher says
> but beneath that concentration
>
> my loving slips
> out of the room
> to be with you.
>
> **************************************************
>
> In meditation, the face of my teacher
> does not come to me very clearly,
>
> but your face does, smiling one way,
> then smiling another.
>
> **************************************************
>
> If I could meditate as deeply
> on the sacred texts as I do
>
> on you, I would clearly be
> enlightened in this lifetime.
>
> **************************************************
>
> Your stallion trots on the sllppery ice,
> over deep-frozen and nearly-frozen water.
>
> When you move toward the beauty of a new lover,
> be careful that your secret legs
> don't scatter and fall!
>
> **************************************************
>
> The old dog at the gate
> has a more subtle soul
> than most human beings.
>
> Please don't tell them
> how I left at dusk
> and came back in at dawn!
>
> **************************************************
>
> Lover waiting in my bed
> to give me your soft, sweet body,
> do you mean well?
>
> What will you take off me,
> besides my clothes?
>
> **************************************************
>
> At night, I'm so in love
> I can't sleep, and each day
>
> fills with the fatigue
> of not having you again.
>
> **************************************************
>
> Wanting this landlord's daughter
> is wanting the topmost
> peach.
>
> **************************************************
>
> The moon lifts
> over the hill edge.
>
> Inside, I see
> you smiling.
>
> **************************************************
>
> Back when I was lucky,
> I could hoist a prayerflag,
>
> and some well-bred young woman
> would invite me home.
>
> **************************************************
>
> She shone her whole smiling face
> at the crowd in the tavern.
>
> Then, from the delicate corners
> of her eyes, she spoke
> love-secrets to me.
>
> **************************************************
>
> I'm young, so
> with a slight smile
> you have me.
>
> But what I want
> is a word from the stream
> of your being.
>
> **************************************************
>
> I often see my lost lover in dreams.
> I will ask a shaman to search in there
> and bring her back to me.
>
> **************************************************
>
> We've had our short walk together,
> this joy. Let's hope we meet early
> in the next life, as young lovers.
>
> **************************************************
>
> While I live in the monastery palace,
> I am Ridzin Tsangyang Gyatso,
> honored in this lineage.
>
> When I roam the streets in Lhasa,
> and down in the valley to Shol,
>
> I am the wildman, Dangyang Wangpo,
> who has many lovers.
>
> **************************************************
>
> Pure snow-water from the holy mountain,
> Dew off the rare Naga Vajra grass.
>
> These essences make a nectar
> which is fermented by one
> who is incarnated as a maiden.
>
> Her cup's contents can protect you
> from rebirth in a lower form,
>
> if it is tasted in the state
> of awareness it deserves.
>
> **************************************************
>
> I know her body's softness
> but not her love.
>
> I draw figures in sand
> to measure great distances
> through the sky.
>
> **************************************************
>
>
> These poems are actually songs, written spontaneously
> by a 17th-century poet who called himself the Turquoise
> Bee. His real name was Ridzin ("treasure") Tsangyang
> ("having a voice like God's") Gyatso (the lineage),
> also known as the Sixth Dalai Lama.
>
> The Great Fifth died suddenly, without fully predicting
> where his next incarnation would be born, so he was not
> enthroned as the Dalai Lama until he was 14. And although
> he passed all of the 30-day tests to indicate that he
> was the true tulku of the Great Fifth, he never quite
> "worked out" as Dalai Lama the way the monks expected
> him to.
>
> He spent his days in the Potala palace, writing scholarly
> works about Buddhism and presiding over the spiritual and
> mundane affairs of Tibet, but he spent his night in Shol-
> town (Lhasa's red light district) drinking and carousing
> with the gals. And writing spontaneous poem-songs like
> these. The songs were still sung on the streets in Tibet
> until the 1950s, when the Chinese outlawed street singing.
>
> I like his poetry because it has the majesty of the best
> writers of koans and haiku, but I like *him* because I
> identify with his lifestyle. Like him, I paid my dues
> learning the ins and outs of spiritual thought and the
> arts of meditation. Like him I make my living during the
> day writing esoteric treatises -- his on Buddhism, me on
> the equally arcane subject of artificial intelligence.
>
> But we both spend our evenings in cafes and taverns, and
> we both have an eye for the ladies. And we both see in
> the ladies JUST as much inspiration as we see in any
> scripture or sitting meditation.
>
> That's probably why I stole his nom de plume for my own.
> I hope that I haven't accrued any bad karma for that.
>
