Inspiration, The Sufi Message, Hazrat Inayat Khan*
Inspiration is called “something that comes in a moment and it is perfect in itself . . . ; it comes so easily. . . . All that comes from inspiration is living, it always keeps its value.”* Here are excerpts of the inspired poems by Rumi of Persia and Kālidāsa of India. “After thousands of years, their writings are read by people and they are never old and people never tire of them.”*
For would the sun not wander
away in every night?
How could at every morning
the world be lighted up?
And if the ocean’s water
would not rise to the sky,
How would the plants be quickened
by streams and gentle rain?*
Rumi
The silver clouds that vie with the whiteness of white lotuses are kissing
the black boulders of mountains on mountaintops, while the mountainsides
are bestrewn with mountain-rapids, and widespread with debut dancing
of peacocks, and all this is inducing a carnivalesque visual revelry…*
Kalidasa
Stepping a long ways away from these inspired poets in both time and spiritual virtuosity to 1974 and the birth of my daughter after her seven-year-old sister had been adopted, at thirty, my daughters were my inspiration for my first poems. Both poems were published in the magazine mother’s manual and will appear in the chapter entitled “First Poetry” in my forthcoming book, A Flower for God.
THE GIFT
What I imagined looking at Beth’s art work that she proudly offered.
From your favorite daughter
here’s a picture made for you
of crayon love and paper
and sticky, white glue.
PJC
I LOVE YOU
For Megan
Peaches and cream, strawberry ice cream,
damp, warm-blushed cheek seeking mine—
so cool.
Mother love meets daughter love
in the shelter-seeking world
of sleeplessness.
Hesitant steps, outstretched arms
to soft snuggling, leaving me whispering,
“Strawberry ice cream, I love you.”
PJC
My poems are not for the ages, yet my sister once said that her favorite was “Peaches and cream,” and I heard in her choice that no other poem of mine could replace that one—a gentle tribute from one mother to another mother.
My realization is, “While these lines illustrate the inspiration of poets, inspiration, of itself, is everywhere imminent where in one there is stillness and receptivity.”
* Hazrat Inayat Khan was a Sufi mystic who came to the Western world in 1910 and lectured and
taught there until his passing away in 1927. The Sufi Message, vol. 4 (Delhi, India: Motilal
Banarsidass, 1994). 225.
* Ibid. 226.
* Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī (Rumi), 1207–1273, was a Persian poet in the Islamic Golden
Age. Rumi, Look! This Is Love: Poems of Rumi, trans. Annemarie Schimme (Boulder, Colorado:
Shambhala Centaur Editions). http://www.khamush.com/poems.html
* Kalidasa (c. 4th–5th centuries CE) a Classical Sanskrit writer, is considered to be one of the greatest poets and dramatists of India. Seasonal Cycle - Chapter 02 - Rainy Season
* Prema Jasmine Camp, A Flower for God (Washington: Wilson Duke Press, forthcoming 2019).