Love is the Wine

Artwork by Shakkal Designs

"To really get into this, we have to get naked, showing up in (and as) undressed Being, allowing ourselves a second innocence, an awakened innocence that strips us of our knowledge and automated certainties and deposits us in the Open Secret of the hyperbole-transcending Mystery of our existence. If our mouth drops open, so be it; if our buttoned-up case of mistaken identity starts to give up the ghost, so be it; if we’re brought to our knees, and prayer becomes not something we do but are, so be it."
Robert Augustus Masters

A white-blazed gazelle
Is an amazing sight,
Red-dye signaling,
Eyelids hinting,
Pasture between breastbones
And innards.
Marvel,
A garden among the flames!
My heart can take on
Any form:
Gazelles in a meadow,
A cloister for monks,
For the idols, sacred ground,
Kaaba for the circling pilgrim,
The tables of the Torah,
The scrolls of the Qur'an
I profess the religion of love;
Wherever its caravan turns
Along the way, that is the belief,
The faith I keep.
Like Bishr,
Hind and her sister,
Love-mad Qays and the lost Layla,
Mayya and her lover Ghaylan.

Poem by Ibn 'Arabi

I'm speechless.