Stay awake and see, O mind beloved. Why slumber when you desire to be a lover?

What you have got, give it away dear. For of such receipts, there is no diminishment.

These crumbs of sadness are so stale and dry, Why does their taste matter to you then?

And when the eyes are heavy with sleep, How does the bed or the blanket matter then?

Says Kabir: On this highway of love, Why weep if even you are to be beheaded!

Translated on 2003:10:17 16:00 Atlanta

Listen to this poem in original Hindi here: www.kabirweb.com

Listen to Robert Bly read some more Kabir here: www.vix.com www.menweb.org

If I sleep, in dreams I encounter You If I awake, You manifest before my eyes.

Nor I want to see the other if I can't see this Love.

Don't ask to what caste saints belong to. Beg instead for a morsel of their Knowledge.

With what face can I plead to Allah I am filled with shame at my imperfections.

We die like this every day, hundred a hundred times. All the hours, eyes keep watch for Your arrival.

O mind, abide in being a fakir. Within me, there is nothing which is mine everything that is, is yours

When there was I, there was no Hari now everything is Hari, and I have vanished. as darkness vanishes when lamps are lit. I was thristy. Now I drank from this cool water and everything is quenched.

Becoming a sadhu is climbing this tall plam tree. If you suceed, much sweet nectar if you fall, only a loud shattering!

Afterall this body is going to vanish, then why these foolish hankerings.

Why read and write of what you haven't yet seen. When the bride and bridegroom meet, all this orchestration has to fall silent!

Down the dusk's ladder night descends scattering astonished stars. From the west, breeze brings echoes of erased love song. In the prison courtyard the exiled trees stand, threading into the sky their intent silhouettes. On the rooftop moon pours heaven's wine: stardust into light -- in these verdant corners blue bodied shadows writhe and leap to my separation’s ache.

And my heart sings: How sweet it seems, to live tonight! The petty tyrants who break into wedding chambers just as brides unveil and smash the lamps, can ever but mask this luminous moon!

My "translation"