Looking for your face

I know I have blogged about this poem before, but it seemed like a good time to post it again. It’s one of my favorites, and it was read at my wedding.

Looking for Your Face

From the beginning of my life
I have been looking for your face
but today I have seen it.

Today I have seen
the charm, the beauty, the unfathomable grace
of the face
that I was looking for

Today I have found you
and those who laughed
and scorned me yesterday
are sorry that they were not looking
as I did

I am bewildered by the magnificence
of your beauty
and wish to see you
with a hundred eyes

My heart has burned with passion
and has searched forever
for this wondrous beauty
that I now behold

I am ashamed
to call this love human
and afraid of G-d
to call it divine

Your fragrant breath
like the morning breeze
has come to the stillness of the garden
You have breathed new life into me
I have become your sunshine
and also your shadow

My soul is screaming in ecstacy
Every fiber of my being
is in love with you

Your effulgence
has lit a fire in my heart
and you have made radiant for me
the earth and sky

My arrow of love
has arrived at the target
I am in the house of mercy
and my heart
is a place of prayer

by Rumi

Rumi was a Sufi poet who lived from 1207-1273. His “love” poems are really about God, but I see them as celebrating human love as an expression of the divine.

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