Delicious Invitation from Rumi

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Subtle degrees
of domination and servitude
are what you know as love.

...but Love is different;
It arrives complete
just there
like the moon in the window.

like the sun
of neither east nor west
nor of anyplace.
when that Sun arrives
east and west arrive.

desire only that
of which you have no hope
seek only that
of which you have no clue.
Love is the sea of not-being
and there, intellect drowns.

this is not the Oxus River
or some little creek.
this is the shoreless sea.
here, swimming ends always in drowning.

a journey to the sea
is horses and fodder and contrivance
but at land’s end
the footsteps vanish.

you lift up your robe
so as not to wet the hem;
come! drown in this sea
a thousand times!

the moon passes over
the ocean of non-being.
droplets of spray tear loose
and fall back on the cresting waves.

a million galaxies
are a little scum
on this shoreless sea.

-Rumi

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