When I was the stream, when I was the
forest, when I was still the field,
when I was every hoof, foot,
fin and wing, when I
was the sky
itself,
no one ever asked me did I have a purpose, no one ever
wondered was there anything I might need,
for there was nothing
I could not
love.
It was when I left all we once were that
the agony began, the fear and questions came,
and I wept, I wept. And tears
I had never known
before.
So I returned to the river, I returned to
the mountains. I asked for their hand in marriage again,
I begged—I begged to wed every object
and creature,
and when they accepted,
God was ever present in my arms.
And He did not say,
“Where have you
been?”
For then I knew my soul—every soul—
has always held
Him.
"When I Was the Forest" by Meister Eckhart, as rendered by Daniel Ladinsky, Love Poems From God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West, translated by Daniel Ladinsky (Penguin Compass, 2002). Art credit: "Birds, a Bison, and a Bit of an Illusion," photograph dated December 6, 2014, by Ron Dudley.
Thank you so much, that says it all.
ReplyDeleteThis is not written by or translated from Meister Eckhart. Ladinsky does in this book what he does in his "Hafiz" book. He makes up his own poems and claims they are more or less channeled by the great mystics of the past. This is a wonderful mystic poem. It is NOT Meister Eckhart.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this comment. Over the years since I posted this (2015), I've learned more about Ladinsky's process and agree with what you're saying.
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