O My Beloved
when I first cast eyes on You,
if You had looked as I expected
I would have greeted you as an old friend
whom I had waited for,
knowing I would recognise You from afar;
but instead, you appear to me
so unexpectedly, in so many new disguises -
as a baby; in the face of a passing stranger,
as a new flower; waiting in the shade of a tree –
that, taken by surprise, I see only You
before I see all else.
This is Your greatest gift to me,
beyond all old, beyond all new,
O My Beloved.
Michael Shepherd
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/in-the-spirit-of-rumi-8/
