Wings.

Breadmaking

There was a feast. The King

was heartily in his cups.

He saw a learned scholar walking by.

“Bring him in and give him

Some of this fine wine.”

Servants rushed out and brought the man

to the king’s table, but he was not

receptive. “I had rather drink poison!

I never tasted wine and never will!

take it away from me!”

He kept on with these loud refusals,

disturbing the atmosphere of the feast.

This is how it sometimes is

at God’s table.

Someone who has heard about ecstatic love,

but never tasted it, disrupts the banquet.

If there were a secret passage

from his ear to his throat, everything

in him would change. Initiation would occur.

As it is, he’s all fire and no light,

all husk and no kernel.

The king gave orders. “Cupbearer,

do what you must!”

This is how your invisible guide acts,

the chess champion across from you

that always wins.  He cuffed

the scholar’s head and said,

                                                      “Taste!”

And, “Again”

                        The cup was drained

and the intellectual started singing

and telling ridiculous jokes.

He joined the garden, snapping his fingers

and swaying. Soon, of course,

he had to pee.

He went out, and there, near the latrine,

was a beautiful woman, one of the king’s harem.

His mouth hung open. He wanted her!

right then, he wanted her!

and she was not unwilling.

They fell to, on the ground.

you’ve seen a baker rolling dough.

he kneads it gently at first,

then more roughly.

He pounds it on the board.

it softly groans under his palms.

Now he spreads it out

and rolls it flat.

Then he bunches it,

and rolls it all the way out again,

thin. Now he adds water,

and mixes it well.

Now salt,

and a little more salt.

Now he shapes it delicately

to its final shape

and slides it into the oven,

which is already hot.

You remember breadmaking!

this is how your desire

tangles with a desired one.

And it’s not just a metaphor

for a man and woman making love.

Warriors in battle do this too.

a great mutual embrace is always happening

between the eternal and what dies,

between essence and accident.

The sport has different rules

in every case, but it’s basically

the same, and remember:

the way you make love is the way

God will be with you.

So these two were lost in their sexual trance.

They did not  care anymore about feasting

or wine.  Their eyes were closed like

perfectly matching calligraphy lines.

The king went looking for the scholar,

and when he saw them there coupled, commented

“Well, as it I said, ‘A good king

must serve his subjects from his own table!’”

There is joy, a wine-like freedom

that dissolves the mind and restores

the spirit, and there is manly fortitude

like the king’s, a reasonableness

that accepts the bewildered lostness.

But meditate now on steadfastness

and clarity, and let those be the wings
that lift and soar through the celestial spheres.

Rumi