If One Can Not Hear

If one can not hear the darkness sing,
Or in Springtime seek out the Beloved's ring;
Then how will Life find you and compose
From your life blood a song to stir the Rose?

If sap that flows like blood through trees,
Moves swifter than the heart set free;
Then what is freedom worth in time,
Or poetry to the Prophet's rhyme?

The place that knows its placelessness,
The solid form that leaps and flows,
The poet's tongue that tastes the tasteless -
Derive their all from the Beloved Rose.

Incantations may rise like heaven,
And the nearest prayer seek out its name;
But sanctity did act as leaven
And sheared the wisest of their fame!

Consider the Point round Whom all now turn,
How Vahid and Townsend changed their ways;
And rethought meaning as meaningless
When face to face with the Ancient of Days.

That the Phoenix no longer needs to burn
To turn to ash that is may rise,
Is but one degree of one degree's turn
Of five thousand cycles that eclipse the skies!