There are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who prey upon them with IBM eyes
And sell their hearts and guts for martinis at noon.
There are men too gentle for a savage world
Who dream instead of snow and children and Halloween
And wonder if the leaves will change their color soon.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who anoint them for burial with greedy claws
And murder them for a merchant's profit and gain.
There are men too gentle for a corporate world
Who dream instead of candied apples and ferris wheels
And pause to hear the distant whistle of a train.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who devour them with eager appetite and search
For other men to prey upon and suck their childhood dry.
There are men too gentle for an accountant's world
Who dream instead of Easter eggs and fragrant grass
And search for beauty in the mystery of the sky.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who toss them like a lost and wounded dove.
Such gentle men are lonely in a merchant's world,
Unless they have a gentle one to love.

Warning

Palestinian poet Taha Muhammad Ali - his 1989 poem "Warning":

Lovers of hunting,
and beginners seeking your prey:
Don't aim your rifles
at my happiness,
which isn't worth
the price of the bullet
(you'd waste on it).
What seems to you
so nimble and fine,
like a fawn,
and flees
every which way,
like a partridge,
isn't happiness.
Trust me:
my happiness bears
no relation to happiness.

Deep Listening

What is the deep listening? Sama is a greeting from the secret ones inside the heart, a letter. The branches of your intelligence grows new leaves in the wind of this listening. The body reaches a peace. Rooster sound comes, reminding you of your love for dawn, The reed flute and the singer’s lips: The knack of how spirit breathes into us becomes as simple and ordinary as Eating and drinking. The dead rise with the pleasure of listening. If someone Can’t hear a trumpet melody, sprinkle dirt on his head and declare him dead. Listen, and feel the beauty of your separation, the unsayable absence. There’s a moon inside every human being. Learn to be companions with it. Give more of your life to this listening. As brightness is to time, so you are to the one who talks to the deep ear in your chest. I should sell my tongue and buy a thousand ears when that one steps near and begins to speak.

- Rumi