"If song is the root of poetry, then prayer is its flower. By prayer we mean, first of all, the deep consciousness of the Absolute. Secondly, we mean the verbal embodiment of that desire which rises from the ground of the soul and seeks to know and love the Real. The greatest examples of spiritual poetry, regardless of the individual poet's religious affiliation, reflect a knowledge of God which has become so ingrained in the substance of the poet's soul that when he opens his mouth to speak, flowers bloom in every word," writes Barry McDonald in the preface to this collection of spiritual poetry.
This paperback is divided into three sections: Dust from the Whirlwind, A Garden Amidst Flames, and The Single Light. Included are fine poems by many saints and sages from all traditions including Issa, Ryokan, Mirabai, Omar Khayyam, Angelus Silesius, Emily Dickinson, Rumi, Rainer Maria Rilke, Rabindranath Tagore, St. John of the Cross, Mechthild of Magdeburg, St. Francis of Assisi, George Herbert, John Donne, Meister Eckhart, Kabir, George MacDonald, and many others.
In this sampler are several poems that deal with the ephemeral nature of life:
• "What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night;
It is the breath of a buffalo in the winter time;
It is the little shadow that runs across the grass
And loses itself in the sunset."
— Chief Isapwo Muksika Crowfoot, Studies in Comparative Religion
• "Last night I dropped and smashed my
porcelain bowl,
A clumsy folly in a bout of drinking.
The shattered bowl in dumb appeal cried out,
'I was like you, you too will be like me.' "
— Omar Khayyam, translated from the Persian by L.P. Elwell-Sutton, in In Search of Omar Khayyam by Ali Dashti
• "Today
My life is mirrored in
A morning glory."
— Moritake, Japanese Death Poems: Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death by Yoel Hoffman
• "Only this
Nothing more
No need to dust
No need to sit."
— Feng Kan, Chinese Zen Poems, What Hold Has This Mountain? edited by Larry Smith and Mei Hui Huang
