and they asked him, master, <br />tell us about bliss… <br /> <br />and he smiled as if <br />within himself, he heard the <br />angels laughing at the blameless <br />comedy of human life <br /> <br />bliss, he said, is where you find it… <br /> <br />as, when one day, you’re so hungry <br />that a meal fit for gods and kings <br />is a loaf of warm, fresh-baked bread; <br />a jug of wine that doesn't ask a label; <br />maybe a piece of local cheese, why not, <br /> <br />the meal which in olden times, <br />was called ‘short commons’ in some tongues, <br />that every innkeeper would offer free <br />to the weary, dust-stained traveller <br />as one would offer to one’s god <br />in thanks for life and sustenance… <br />saying, there’s a shady tree out there, <br />go and sit beneath it in the cool… <br /> <br />A loaf of bread, a jug of wine… and Thou.. <br /> <br />Thou who appearest in so many forms <br />always beside me; <br /> <br />Thou who made the bread, its daily freshness <br />as if the morning made it from the desert dew; <br /> <br />who made the wine’s slow miracle; <br />who made the jug – the metaphoric clay of life <br />made moist with love, fired hard by love… <br /> <br />who made the tree which shades you as you eat; <br />who, the meal finished, waits for your gratitude <br />so as to know that all He made, is good… <br /> <br />and who then offers - as silently as sand beneath your feet, <br />as silently as cool air moves around the tree’s light shade, <br />as silently as ripening figs blush on the branch above you, <br />as silently as roses live their scented life, <br /> <br />as still as morning dawns, or evening shades - <br />Himself, as bliss; where for a moment as you sit, <br />there is no thing in all His world <br />to be desired; for All is here.. <br /> <br />there in the heart, the sweetest taste of His <br />so intricate and jewelled simplicity.<br /><br />Michael Shepherd<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/in-the-spirit-of-rumi-74-bliss/
