A STORY ABOUT ALEXANDER THE GREAT

When Alexander, that unconquered lord,
Who subjugated empires with his sword,
Required a lengthy message to be sent
He dressed up as the messenger and went.
"The king gives such an order," he should say,
And none of those who hurried to obey
Once guessed this messenger's identity-
They had no knowledge of such majesty,
And even if he said: "I am your lord",
The claim was thought preposterous and ignored.
Deluded natures cannot recognize
The royal way that stands before their eyes.

                                                      ATTAR

THE TWO DOCTORS

A Dr. Cheer and a Dr. Gloom
Were summoned to the same sickroom.
"He'll die," said Gloom, "I greatly fear."
"He'll get well," said Dr. Cheer.
The man agreed to follow Gloom,
And soon was lying in his tomb.
"Just as I thought," said Gloom. Said Cheer,
"If he'd hired me, he'd still be here."
They both did well by the patients doom,
Dr. Cheer and Dr. Gloom.

REF: SELECTED FABLES

THE LION IN LOVE

Ages ago when beasts could speak
Some hoped to join the human clique
Notably lions. And with reason-
They equalled men, in that far season
In brain and brawn, and what was more
Could really roar.

Thus when a lion of high degree
Was passing through a meadowy
Place and saw a shepherdess
Whom he was avid to posses,
He went at once to ask her father.
That good man balked: for he would rather
Have had his pretty daughter marry
Someone less scary.

It seemed hard lines to let her go,
But then he thought if he said 'no'
He might wake up to find some morning
That she'd eloped without a warning.
He knew his child was ever keen
For people with a kingly mien,
And had her cap set, that was plain,
Fpr a long mane.

Afraid to bring things to a head
By ousting him, the father said:
"My daughter is delicately fashioned.
As soon as you become impassioned
You'd likely wound her with your claws.
So kindly have on all four paws
The talons trimmed. One other issue:
If this young girl is going to kiss you
With any ardor, she must be
Freed of all anxiety.
So for your own enjoyment, while
You're at it, let them file
Your teeth." The lion, love-demented
Consented.

Behold him now without his teeth,
Without his claws, an empty sheath!
With all his native weapons gone
The helpless lion was set upon
By hounds that easily outmatched him.
They dispatched him.

Ah love, whoever bows to you
Should bid his sanity adieu!

REF: SELECTED FABBLES

THE DEVOUT SLAVE

A negro had a slave devout and wise
Who at an early hour would wake and rise,
Then pray until the sun came peeping through.
His master said: "wake me up early too,
And we can pray together till the dawn."
The slave said: "just before a baby's born,
Who tells the mother 'Now your time draws near?'
She knows it does- her pain has made it clear;
If you have felt this pain you are awake-
No other man can feel it for your sake.
If someone has to rouse you every day,
Then someone else instead of you should pray."
The man without this pain is not a man;
May grief destroy the bragging charlatan!
But one who is entangled in its spell
Forget all thoughts of heaven or of hell.

                                                   ATTAR

GREETING GOD

                 I hear
The nightingale greeting
                  God.

                 I hear
The rain speaking to the roof
             Of my heart.

Like a winter blanket of snow gently
            Tucking in the earth

I let a great yearning within my ken
               Lay down next
                   To Him

                     I hear
    A sorrowful lover being true
No matter what, even if the Beloved seems
                    Cruel,

                   Tonight
There is a jeweled falcon singing in a
     Blessed pain using the tongue
                        Of
                     HAFIZ

I COME BEFORE DAWN

Muhammad says,
                           "I come before dawn
to chain you and drag you off."
It's amazing, and funny, that you have to be pulled away
from being tortured, pulled out
into this Springs garden,
                                     but that is the way it is.
Almost everyone must be bound and dragged here.
Only a few come on their own.

Children have to be made to go to school at first.
Then some of them begin to like it.
                                               They run to school.
They expand with the learning.
                                               Later they receive money
because of something they're learned at school,
and they get really excited. They stay up all night,
as watchful and alive as thieves!

Remember the reward you get for being obedient!

There are two types on the path. Those who come
against their will, the blindly religious people, and those
who obey out of love. The former have ulterior motives.
They want the midwife near, because she give them milk.
The others love the beauty of the nurse.

The former memorise the proof texts of conformity,
and repeat them. The latter disappear
into whatever draws them to God.

Both are drawn from the source.
Any moving from the mover,
Any love from the beloved.

                                         RUMI

WOW! TO THE CREATOR

-In crocodilians, chelonians and some lizard species, the sex of
the young depends on the temperature at which the eggs are
incubated. Higher temperatures tend to produce more males, and
lower temperatures more females.


-A giant tortoise can support a one-tonne weight- about a weight
of an average car.


-Nile crocodiles allow small birds, such as spur-wing plovers, to
walk into their open mouths to pick food from between their teeth.


-Crocodiles often swallow stones to help them grind up their food.
The stone also probably act as ballast, enabling the reptile to float
without tipping over.

-After eating a huge meal, such as a leopard. a python may not need
to eat again for up to 12 months. One rock python was recorded
as going for 2 years and 9 months between meals.

WOW! TO THE CREATOR

-Some moth species drink the tears of
hoofed animals such as cattle, deer, horses,
tapirs, pigs and elephants.


-The largest locust swarms can contain up to
50 billion insects. and over1,000 sq km of land.
Such swarms can devour enough crops in a single
day to feed around half a million people for a whole
year.


-At night, scorpions are said to be able to use the
stars to navigate and orient themselves.


-The Australian water-holding frogs survives long
desert droughts by shedding the outer layers of its
skin to form a cocoon that it fills with water.


-When it find water, a thirsty desert tortoise may
drink more than 40% of its own body weight in
water in just over an hour.

THE VIGIL

Don't go to sleep one night.
What you most want will come to you then.
Warmed by a sun inside, you'll see wonders.
Tonight, don't put your head down.
Be tough, and strength will come.
That which adoration adores
appears at night. Those asleep
may miss it. One night Moses stayed awake
and asked, and saw a light in a tree.

Then he walked at night for ten years,
until finally he saw the whole tree
illuminated. Muhammad rode his horse
through the night sky. The day is for work.
The night for love. Don't let someone
bewitch you. Some people sleep at night.

But not lovers. They sit in the dark
and talk to God, who told David,
"Those who sleep all night every night
and claim to be connected to us, they lie."

Lovers can't sleep when they feel the privacy
of the beloved all around them. Someone
who's thirsty may sleep for a little while,
but he or she will dream of water, a full jar
beside a creek, or the spiritual water you get
from another person. All night, listen
to the conversation. Stay up.
This moment is all there is.

Death will take it away soon enough.
You'll be gone, and this earth will be left
without a sweetheart, nothing but weeds
growing inside thorns.

I'm through. Read the rest of this poem
in the dark tonight.
                        Do I have a head? And feet?

Shams, so loved by Tabrizians, I close my lips.
I wait for you to come and open them.

                                                 RUMI