Category: Poetry

Issue 88 Featured Website Poet

FARRAH A. BOLVARDE

is a Computer Engineer who lives and works in Toronto, Canada.

SAMA

With souls engulfed and hidden
in Your love, this is our Sama

We are ruined; what separation,
or union!? this is our Sama

Dead to our desires, drenched
in blood and far from all, this is our Sama

The twists and turns of this
world are nothing to us, this is our Sama

Clinging to Your wings with hearts soaring
in your love, this is our Sama

Mesmerized by Your beauty, with
only half a glance at the lifeless self, this is our Sama

Wrapped in Your remembrance
with our every particle dancing in ecstasy, this is our Sama

FARRAH A. BOLVARDE

Issue 88 Featured Poet

JOHN WOLF

writes and photographs from the western suburbs of Chicago. Since his initiation by Sant Kirpal Singh Ji Maharaj in 1971, he has practiced meditation and spirituality in the Sant Mat tradition. www.johnwolf.net

I Thought I Could Follow

In my innocence and naiveté
I thought I could follow
your flashing footsteps
over oceans and past moons.

I had many loves before
and a heart strong with trials
so when your face appeared
I was sure I could follow.

But you turned out to be a god
and your standard of faith so high.
Watching from the shore of eternity
I knew I could not follow.

Still, I am alive in your sea;
your love swims in my heart.
What can I do but want you.
What can I do but follow.

JOHN WOLF

Featured Poet: Mark Nepo

MARK NEPO is a poet and philosopher who has taught in the fields of poetry and spirituality for over thirty-five years. Here, he shares with us four of his recent poems.

(more…)

Featured Poet: Daniel Skach-Mills

WHY MONKS CHOOSE SILENCE

by Daniel Skach-Mills

To step out, once and for all,
from under the sag ging,
word-weary roof of the mouth.
To be the vast,
unfeathered nest of emptiness
out of which sound arises,
and into which it lands.
To live like the open ear of a furrow
listening for a seed—
loves infant hand knocking from inside,
wanting in to be the world.

(Artwork by Gordana Adamovic-Mladenovic, gordanaphoto.com)

Visit the Store to Subscribe or Buy the Current Issue and Back Issues

Featured Poet: Roger Loff

ROGER LOFF studied Journalism and Politics at New York University and now lives in Oakdale California. He works as a mental health clinician in the Stanislaus County Juvenile Hall. His poetry appears in Issue 82 of SUFI.

(more…)

Featured Poet: Jo Going

JO GOING’s poem ‘Epiphany’ was originally printed in our Divine Love Issue of SUFI (81). Jo’s book of poems and paintings, “Wild Cranes,’ won the Library Fellows Award and is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

(more…)

Turning to Hafez

THE ART OF FIGURAL CALLIGRAPHY

by Jila Peacock

I was born in Tehran to an English mother and Iranian father, and, although English was my mother tongue, my first written language was Persian, which I studied from the age of seven at my Iranian primary school. I remember being introduced at that time to snippets of Ferdousi in my first textbooks, to Sa‘di, my father’s favorite poet, and Edward Fitzgerald’s translations of Khayyam, which my mother would always recite by heart. My introduction to Hafiz came much later in life.

(more…)

Featured Poet: Mark Nepo

Mark Nepo is a poet and philosopher who has taught in the fields of poetry and spirituality for over thirty-five years. A New York Times #1 bestselling author, he has published thirteen books and recorded eight audio projects. Recent work includes his next book of spiritual inquiry, Seven Thousand Ways to Listen (Simon & Schuster, with audio book, Fall 2012). www.marknepo.com

THE WAY
UNDER THE WAY

For all that has been written,
for all that has been read, we
are led to this instant where one
of us will speak and one of us will
listen, as if no one has ever placed
an oar into that water.

It doesn’t matter how we come
to this. We may jump to it or be
worn to it. Because of great pain.
Or a sudden raw feeling that this
is all very real. It may happen in a
parking lot when we break the eggs
in the rain. Or watching each other
in our grief.

But here we will come. With very
little left in the way.

When we meet like this, I may not
have the words, so let me say it now:
Nothing compares to the sensation
of being alive in the company of
another. It is God breathing on
the embers of our soul.

(Photo by Jim Kosinski.)

Visit the Store to Subscribe or Buy the Current Issue and Back Issues