Poetry

[Dekalb_Blues]

Prayer to be an Artist

Lord, clip my wings, so may my feet learn flying!
Lord, to my eyes deny their loving sight!
For only thus, when waves of sound are dying,
May I hear music on the waves of light.

Of kisses on my mouth, dear Lord, bereave me
That on my lips there may be room for prayer.
Lord, close the gates of Heaven. Do not receive me,
But keep me standing on the top-most stair.

-- Clinch Calkins, Poems (NY: Knopf, 1928)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d29u8KWiacw




(A Prayer of Rabi'a)

O my Lord, if I worship You from fear of Hell,
        burn me in Hell;
and if I worship You from hope of Paradise,
        exclude me from Paradise.
But if I worship You for Your own sake,
        do not withhold from me Your Eternal Beauty.

-- Rabi'a al-Basri, Iraqi Sufi poetess (died 801 A.D.)




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0lLVet6szM