[ruuhaniyat]

Sometimes I feel like there's a hole inside of me, an emptiness that at times seems to burn. I think if you lifted my heart to your ear, you could probably hear the ocean. The moon tonight, there's a circle around it. Sign of trouble not far behind. I have this dream of being whole. Of not going to sleep each night, wanting. But still sometimes, when the wind is warm or the crickets sing...I dream of a love that even time will lie down and be still for. I just want someone to love me. I want to be seen. I don't know. Maybe I had my happiness. I don't want to believe it but, there is no man, Gilly. Only that moon.

Sandra Bullock as Sally Owens in Practical Magic (1998)

[ruuhaniyat]

THE GIFT

I speak from the deep end of night.

Of end of darkness I speak.

I speak of deep night ending.

O kind friend, if you visit my house,

Bring me a lamp, cut me a window,

So I can gaze at the swarming alley of the fortunate.

Forugh Farrokhzad, c.1964 (translated by S. Wolpé)

[ruuhaniyat]

THE FOLLY OF BEING COMFORTED

One that is ever kind said yesterday:

"Your well-beloved's hair has threads of grey,

And little shadows come about her eyes;

Time can but make it easier to be wise

Though now it seems impossible, and so

All that you need is patience."

Heart cries, "No,

I have not a crumb of comfort, not a grain.

Time can but make her beauty over again:

Because of that great nobleness of hers

The fire that stirs about her, when she stirs,

Burns but more clearly. O she had not these ways

When all the wild Summer was in her gaze."

Heart! O heart! if she'd but turn her head,

You'd know the folly of being comforted.

William Butler Yeats, c.1902

[ruuhaniyat]

THERE WILL COME SOFT RAINS

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,

And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,

And wild plum trees in tremulous white,

Robins will wear their feathery fire

Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one

Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree

If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,

Would scarcely know that we were gone.

Sara Teasdale, c.1918

[ruuhaniyat]

SONNET 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments; love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no, it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand'ring bark

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come.

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom:

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

William Shakespeare, c.1609

[ruuhaniyat]

IF I SHOULD DIE

If I should die,

And you should live—

And time should gurgle on—

And morn should beam—

And noon should burn—

As it has usual done—

If Birds should build as early

And Bees as bustling go—

One might depart at option

From enterprise below!

’Tis sweet to know that stocks will stand

When we with Daisies lie—

That Commerce will continue—

And Trades as briskly fly—

It makes the parting tranquil

And keeps the soul serene—

That gentlemen so sprightly

Conduct the pleasing scene!

Emily Dickinson, c.1860

[ruuhaniyat]

A FANTASY

Her voice is like clear water

That drips upon a stone

In forests far and silent

Where Quiet plays alone.

Her thoughts are like the lotus

Abloom by sacred streams

Beneath the temple arches

Where Quiet sits and dreams.

Her kisses are the roses

That glow while dusk is deep

In Persian garden closes

Where Quiet falls asleep.

Sara Teasdale, c.1911

[ruuhaniyat]

I always feel this pressure of being a strong and independent icon of womanhood, and not making it look like my whole life is revolving around some guy. But loving someone and being loved means so much to me. I always make fun of it and stuff. But isn't everything we do in life a way to be loved a little more?

Julie Delpy as Céline in Before Sunrise (1995) [written by Richard Linklater and Kim Krizan]

[ruuhaniyat]

TWILIGHT

Dreamily over the roofs

The cold spring rain is falling,

Out in the lonely tree

A bird is calling, calling.

Slowly over the earth

The wings of night are falling;

My heart like the bird in the tree

Is calling, calling, calling.

Sara Teasdale, c.1915

[ruuhaniyat]

MAD GIRL'S LOVE SONG

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;

I lift my lids and all is born again.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,

And arbitrary blackness gallops in:

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed

And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:

Exit seraphim and Satan's men:

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,

But I grow old and I forget your name.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;

At least when spring comes they roar back again.

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

Sylvia Plath, c.1953

[ruuhaniyat]

MY DREAMS, MY WORKS, MUST WAIT TILL AFTER HELL

I hold my honey and I store my bread

In little jars and cabinets of my will.

I label clearly, and each latch and lid

I bid, Be firm till I return from hell.

I am very hungry. I am incomplete.

And none can tell when I may dine again.

No man can give me any word but Wait,

The puny light. I keep eyes pointed in;

Hoping that, when the devil days of my hurt

Drag out to their last dregs and I resume

On such legs as are left me, in such heart

As I can manage, remember to go home,

My taste will not have turned insensitive

To honey and bread old purity could love.

Gwendolyn Brooks, c.1945

[ruuhaniyat]

TRAVEL TICKETS

The day I'm killed,

my killer, rifling through my pockets,

will find travel tickets:

One to peace,

one to the fields and the rain,

and one

to the conscience of humankind.

I beg you my dear killer: don't

Ignore them. Don't waste such a thing,

But take and use the tickets. Please

I beg you to go traveling. 

Samih al-Qasim, c.1984 (translated by A.Z. Foreman)

[ruuhaniyat]

HER ANXIETY

Earth in beauty dressed

Awaits returning spring.

All true love must die,

Alter at the best

Into some lesser thing.

Prove that I lie.

Such body lovers have,

Such exacting breath,

That they touch or sigh.

Every touch they give,

Love is nearer death.

Prove that I lie.

William Butler Yeats, c.1895

[ruuhaniyat]

STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound’s the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost, c.1922

[ruuhaniyat]

A DEEP-SWORN VOW

Others because you did not keep

That deep-sworn vow have been friends of mine;

Yet always when I look death in the face,

When I clamber to the heights of sleep,

Or when I grow excited with wine,

Suddenly I meet your face.

William Butler Yeats, c.1919

[ruuhaniyat]

LOVE LETTER #69

When you danced with me that night,

Something strange happened.

I felt as if a blazing star

Left its place in the sky

And sought refuge in my chest.

I felt as if an entire forest

Was growing under my clothes.

I felt as if a three year old child

Was writing her schoolwork

On the fabric of my shirt.

It is not my habit to dance.

But that night

I was not merely dancing,

I was the dance.

Nizar Qabbani, c.1970 (translated by B.K. Frangieh and C.R. Brown)

[ruuhaniyat]

ONE NEED NOT BE A CHAMBER TO BE HAUNTED

One need not be a chamber—to be haunted—

One need not be a House—

The Brain—has Corridors surpassing 

Material Place—

Far safer, of a Midnight—meeting 

External Ghost—

Than an Interior—confronting—

That cooler—Host—

Far safer, through an Abbey—gallop—

The Stones a’chase—

Than moonless—One’s A’self encounter—

In lonesome place—

Ourself—behind Ourself—Concealed—

Should startle—most—

Assassin—hid in Our Apartment—

Be Horror’s least—

The Prudent—carries a Revolver—

He bolts the Door, 

O’erlooking a Superior Spectre

More near—

Emily Dickinson, c.1862