Description
This sweet, soulful song is excerpted from Jocelyn’s oratorio amass. The text is a translation by Daniel Ladinsky, from his book Love Poems from God. Rabia, the original poet, was a female Muslim saint and Sufi mystic who lived in Iraq in the 8th century.
Performed by Jonathan Lasch, Amir Eldan, and Bret Hoag, Eugene Rogers conductor
Text
In
my soul
there is a temple, a shrine, a mosque, a church
where I kneel.
Prayer should bring us to an altar where no walls or names exist.
Is there not a region of love where the sovereignty is
illumined nothing,
where ecstasy gets poured into itself
and becomes
lost,
where the wing is fully alive
but has no mind or
body?
In
my soul
there is a temple, a shrine, a mosque,
a church
that dissolve, that
dissolve in
God.
– Rabia, translated by Daniel Ladinsky.
