Kabir Helminski

Love is reckless

Love is reckless; not reason.
Reason seeks a profit.
Love comes on strong, consuming herself, unabashed.
Yet, in the midst of suffering,
Love proceeds like a millstone,
hard surfaced and straightforward.
Having died to self-interest,
she risks everything and asks for nothing.

Love gambles away every gift God bestows.
Without cause God gave us Being;
without cause, give it back again.

Gambling yourself away is beyond any religion.
Religion seeks grace and favor,
but those who gamble these away are God’s favorites,
for they neither put God to the test
nor knock at the door of gain and loss.

A moment of happiness

A moment of happiness,
You and I sitting on the verandah,
Apparently two, but one in soul, you and I.

We feel the flowing water of life here,
you and I, with the garden’s beauty and the birds singing.
The stars will be watching us,
and we will show them
what it means to be a thin crescent moon.

You and I unselfed, will be together,
indifferent to idle speculation, you and I.
the parrots of heaven will be cracking sugar
as we laugh together, you and I.

And what is even more amazing
is that while here together, you and I
are at this very moment in Iraq and Khorasan.
In one form upon this earth,
and in another form in timeless sweet land.