Lockdown Nights in Oxford
Last night I walked the streets of Oxford with Kabir
The night before it was Jesus
And the night before, Rumi visited, uninvited!
Every night a different companion but always the same Friend
Why go anywhere when the Beloved always comes to you?
I pointed out the smiling houses to Kabir
(Have you noticed that houses have a face?)
‘It is I who am smiling’, he said
‘I am happy to see you’, I said to Atmananda the next night
‘You are happiness itself’, he replied
I stood outside a chapel
And listened to a choir with Brother Lawrence
‘Our love for God is God’s love for us’, he said
And the next night, Meister Eckhart,
‘There is a huge silence inside each of us
That beckons us into itself’
‘Know nothing’, Socrates said the following night
‘Be everything’, added Parmenides
I showed Plotinus the gardens
But he said, ‘I see only one thing’
I talked with the Buddha
But he remained silent
I was silent with Moses
But he started to sing
I uttered the word ‘I’
But Balyani held his hand to my mouth
I asked Huang Po if he could hear the stream
‘There is only the hearing’, he said
I found William Blake naked in the park
‘Do you see how, through perception,
The infinite gives birth to itself?’ he asked
‘He’s right’, Ramana said,
‘The universe appears every moment
Through the portal ‘I Am’
And later, when I suggested we rest,
‘I am always at rest’, he smiled
‘Thine this universal frame,
Thus wondrous fair,
Thyself how wondrous then?’
Milton asked ecstatically as we looked at the sky
‘Everything shines with being’, Wordsworth said
I offered Jesus a drink
‘I am the water of life’, he said
I walked in silence with Francis
‘My silence is my question’, I said
‘My silence is my answer’, he replied
I walked alone one night
With the world for my Friend
The next night I found Hafiz drunk on a bench
‘Come taste this wine!’ he called
Shams came to join us
‘I am looking for the Friend’, he sighed
‘I love these night-time walks’, I said to Anandamaya Ma
‘Love only love’, she said
I listened to barking dogs with Abinavagupta
‘Know only knowing’, he said
‘I am…’
‘Shhh! Don’t add anything to it’,
Sri Nisargadatta exclaimed
I danced down the street with Mozart
I prayed in every step with Bach
I listened with Beethoven
And he showed me everything
As the crystallised form
Of a great cosmic pulsation
I leaned with Primo Levi against a wall
Watching friends and lovers and strangers
‘Each of us’, he said ‘bears the imprint
Of a friend met along the way;
In each the trace of each’
Yeats joined us
‘There are no strangers here’, he said
‘Only friends we haven’t yet met’
And Rembrandt agreed
‘If you look at anyone for long enough’, he said
They will eventually become your friend’
I watched the sun set with Shelley one night
‘The One remains, the many change and pass’, he said
And then, as the moon arose,
‘Heaven’s light forever shines, Earth’s shadows fly;
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until Death tramples it to fragments. Die,
If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek!’
And last night Rumi followed me home
‘Kiss the ground with every step’, he said
‘Good night’, I said, without words
‘We part without parting’, he smiled
