Put This Design

[Guest guest]

Put This Design In Your Carpet

Spiritual experience is a modest woman

who looks lovingly at only one man.

It's a great river where ducks

live happily, and crows drown.

The visible bowl of form contains food

that is both nourishing and a source of heartburn.

There is an unseen presence we honor

that gives the gifts.

You're water. We're the millstone.

You're wind. We're dust blown up into shapes.

You're spirit. We're the opening and closing

of our hands. You're the clarity.

We're this language that tries to say it.

You're joy. We're all different kinds of laughing.

Any movement or sound is a profession of faith,

as the millstone grinding is explaining how it believes

in the river! No metaphor can say this,

but I can't stop pointing

to the beauty.

Every moment and place says,

"Put this design in your carpet!"

Like the shepherd in Book II,

who wanted to pick the lice off God's robe,

and stitch up God's shoes, I want to be

in such passionate adoration

that my tent gets pitched against the sky!

Let the beloved come

and sit like a guard dog

in front of the tent.

When the ocean surges,

don't let me just hear it,

Let it splash inside my chest!

-Rumi