Poem: Cast All Your Votes for Dancing
This poem is the first in a long time to really get to me, so I am sharing it here. I love the imagery of it, I understand it in a way I am not sure I can explain. I have read it out loud to myself three times within 5 minutes of first reading it silently. I am bothered only by the exhortations, the commanding tone, but only upon the third aloud reading did the superior commands penetrate the beauty of the Rumi-esque language.
Cast All Your Votes For Dancing
I know the voice of depression
Still calls to you.
I know those habits that can ruin your life
Still send their invitations.
But you are with the Friend now
And look so much stronger.
You can stay that way
And even bloom!
Keep squeezing drops of the Sun
From your prayers and work and music
And from your companions' beautiful laughter.
Keep squeezing drops of the Sun
From the sacred hands and glance of your Beloved
And, my dear,
From the most insignificant movements
Of your own holy body.
Learn to recognize the counterfeit coins
That may buy you just a moment of pleasure,
But then drag you for days
Like a broken man
Behind a farting camel.
You are with the Friend now.
Learn what actions of yours delight Him,
What actions of yours bring freedom
And Love.
Whenever you say God's name, dear pilgrim,
My ears wish my head was missing
So they could finally kiss each other
And applaud all your nourishing wisdom!
O keep squeezing drops of the Sun
From your prayers and work and music
And from your companions' beautiful laughter
And from the most insignificant movements
Of your own holy body.
Now, sweet one,
Be wise.
Cast all your votes for Dancing!
("I Heard God Laughing - Renderings of Hafiz" by Daniel Ladinsky)