Lotus
Enlightenment
Purity
Beauty
“The moon~~~
Too beautiful
Not to enjoy~~~“
I
We’ll remember your love:
The upright love!
“Tell me, whom my soul loves,
Where are you around noon?”
Our rest place is green …surrounded with flowers.
Expect a great harvest,
truly the rain and the light are sweet, and
pleasant for the eyes to behold.
O sun!
If we live many years and are glad …
remember there is darkness too…
All, dear, is just vanity!
Let your heart cheer,
and walk in the ways-of your heart,
know this in the clear way of sight of the eye:
because you are wise, and thus give the people
knowledge, yes, you give good advice, my love!
The poet sought out acceptable words:
and has written upright—words of truth
to remove sadness from the heart!
Life has meaning when we live
in the right relation with God, therefore
move regrets and sorrow from your mind,
and put away evil from the flesh:
for the sensual years are vanity.
“Tell me,
you are the strength of eternity,
and the lily of stretched out wide valleys:
as flowers among thorns.”
II
Who is this who comes out of the wilderness
like a pillar of smoke?
The pillar of trust like a wind of the north
changing into the breeze of the south—
blow on me!
Set me as a seal upon your heart,
love is as strong as death:
for jealousy is cruel as the grave,
the coal of fire,
which has a most vehement flame:
tears cannot cool love, neither can they drown it in a flood:
if a man would give his house for love,
it would be utterly contained.
God does not see evil,
the horror
comes from personalizing evil,
the fear of God is just fear~~~.
A vision brought me to a door.
When I looked through a hole in the wall.
There …
I heard a voice, “Go behind the wall!”
and I saw everything;
creeping things,
and wild beasts,
portrayed on the wall round about!
The living creatures ran
and returned as the appearance
of a flash of lightning
that they were lifted up.
And there was a voice from the firmament!
I was assured of God’s love,
my heart rested!
III
“She is a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys.
Like a lily among thorns is my darling
among the young people.”
(A gentle touch of her hand—
can there be more than this?)
Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest
is my beloved among the young men.
I delight to sit in his shade,
and his fruit is sweet to my taste.
and let his banner over me be love.
Strengthen me with raisins,
refresh me with apples, for I am faint.
“Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you by
the gazelles and by the does of the field:
Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.”
Listen! Look!
Here he comes, leaping across the mountains,
bounding over the hills.
Look! There he stands behind our wall,
gazing through the windows,
peering through the lattice.
“Arise, my darling,
my beautiful one, come with me.
See!
The winter is past; the rains are over and gone.
Flowers appear on the earth;
the season of singing has come,
the cooing of doves are heard in our land.
The fig tree forms its early fruit;
the blossoming vines spread their fragrance.
My dove in the clefts of the rock,
in the hiding places on the mountainside,
show me your face,
let me hear your voice;
for your voice is sweet,
and your face is lovely.
Catch for us the foxes,
the little foxes that ruin the vineyards,
our vineyards that are in bloom.”
My beloved is mine;
he browses among the lilies.
Until the day breaks
and the shadows flee, and turn!
IV
He speaks of wonders …
“How beautiful you are! Oh, how beautiful!
Your eyes behind your veil
are doves.
Each has its twin;
not one of them is alone.
Your lips are
like the halves of a pomegranate.
I will go to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of incense.
Come with me from Lebanon,
from the crest of Amana,
from the top of Senir,
the summit of Hermon,
from the lions' dens
and from the mountain where are the
haunts of leopards.
You have stolen my heart, my sister, my friend;
you have stolen my heart
with one glance of your eyes!
How delightful is your love,
my sister, my friend!
How much more pleasing is your love than wine,
and the fragrance of your perfume
more than any spice!
Your lips drop sweetness
as the honeycomb,
my friend—
milk and honey are under your tongue.
The fragrance of your garments
is like the fragrance of Lebanon.
You are a garden locked up, my sister;
you are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain.
Your plants are an orchard
of pomegranates with choice fruits,
with henna and nard, nard and
saffron, calamus and cinnamon,
with every kind of incense tree,
with myrrh and aloes and all the finest spices.”
You are a garden fountain,
a well of flowing water
streaming down from the mountain.
Awake, north wind, and come, south wind!
Blow on my garden, that its fragrance may spread everywhere.
Let my precious friend come into mine garden
and taste its choice fruits.
V
“She binds the world’s innermost core together,
sees all its workings and its seeds,
deals no more in words’ empty deeds…”
No cool philosopher, he,
but speaks his mind:
“What made it such an enriching experience?
discussing the subject with her—?
It had to be, the commonality…
the single most important feeling of
Love…
…the solution to all life’s problems..
she proved love resides in the human heart…!
There is one word that describes her: all-embracing!
She not only teaches in a priestly way…but
having taught..…loves
and what more could one want?
Her air, her aspect, her look
could change a cynic!!”
She asks herself:”What connects
the stars?”
He continues: “She inspires—the essence
of her teaching is friendship!
Her thought—based on the ideas that sustain—
would have people and nations
and universes
move in harmony—“
She responds, “Do not assume too much: I
always will be true to myself.
You must neither expect
nor exact anything inhumane of me—
for you will not receive it from me
any more than I graciously give.
He says, “Every atom
of her is as dear to me as my own:
in pain and sickness it would still be so!
So let me sing:
‘Her coming was my hope each day,
Her parting was my pain;
The chance that did her steps delay
Was ice in every vein.’ “
VI
Most true it is that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
A beauty is of meaning, of movement, of radiance.”
I care for myself.
The more solitary,
the more friendless,
the more unsustained I am,
the more I will respect myself.
I can live alone, if self-respect,
and circumstances require me so to do.
I need not sell my soul to buy bliss.
I have an inward treasure born with me,
which can keep me alive
if all extraneous delights should be withheld,
or offered only at a price I cannot afford.
Laws and principles are not for the times
when there is no temptation:
they are for such moments as this,
when body and soul rise in mutiny
against their strength;
stringent are they; inviolate they shall be.
If at my individual convenience I might break them,
what would be their worth?
Conventionality is not morality.
Self-righteousness is not religion.
To attack the first is not to assail the last.
To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee,
is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns—
“Who is she that looks forth as the morning,
fair as the moon, dear as the sun,
and terrible as an army?”
Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult
to eradicate from the heart …
are entertained by those
whose soil has never been loosened
or fertilized by knowledge: they grow there,
firm as weeds among stones.
“Oh! That gentleness!
how far more potent is it than force!”
I remembered the real world is wide,
and that a varied field of hopes and fears,
of sensations and excitements, entices those
who had the courage to go forth
into its expanse, to seek real knowledge
of life amidst its perils…
VII
“Which way did your friend turn,
that we may look for him with you?”
He has gone down to his garden,
to the beds of spices,
to browse in the gardens and to gather lilies.
I am my beloved's and
my beloved is mine;
he browses among the lilies.
“You are as beautiful as Tirzah!”
Turn your eyes from me;
they overwhelm me!
“But my dove,
my perfect one, is unique!”
Who is this that appears
bright as the sun, majestic as the stars in procession?
VIII
I went down to the grove of nut trees
to look at the new growth in the valley,
to see if the vines had budded
or the pomegranates were in bloom.
Before I realized it,
my desire
set me among the trees and the flowers.
“Who is this coming up from the wilderness
leaning on her beloved?”
Under the apple tree I roused you…
Many waters
cannot quench love;
rivers cannot sweep it away.
If one were to give all the wealth of one's house for love…
( I have become in his eyes
like one bringing contentment…
He has a vineyard in Baal Hamon;
he let out his vineyard to tenants.
Each was to bring for its fruit a thousand coins of silver.
But my own vineyard
is mine to give;
the thousand coins are for him
and two hundred are for those who tend its fruit.)
IX
You who dwell in the gardens
with friends in attendance,
let me hear your voice!
Come away, my beloved,
and let us go to the spice-laden mountains.
Love’s holiness will lead us …
to the comfort and peace of our souls …
led eternally by the inner sunshine that make us grow
as our garden grows and blooms.
And so, my love, make yourself at home
in the love that asks, “not here yet?”
And answers, “let me be here—now!”
