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MONSTERS OF GRACE
A Digital Opera in Three Dimensions
Philip Glass & Robert Wilson
Lyrics by Yalal al-Din Rumi
Translated and Adapted from the original by Coleman Barks
1998 Dunvagen Music Publishers, Inc.
Secene 1: Where Everything Is Music
Dont worry about saving these songs!
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesnt matter.
We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.
The strumming and the ute notes
rise into the atmosphere,
and even if the whole worlds harp
should burn up, there will still be
hidden instruments playing.
So the candle ickers and goes out.
We have a piece of int, and a spark.
This singing art is sea foam.
The graceful movements come from a pearl
somewhere on the ocean oor.
Poems reach up like spendthrift and the edge
of driftwood along the beach, wanting!
They derive
from a slow and powerful root
that we cant see.
Stop the words now!
Open the window in the center of your chest,
and let the spirits y in and out.
Scene 2: The Needle
Scene 3: Dont Go Back To Sleep

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Dont go back to sleep
You must ask for what you really want
Dont go back to sleep
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Dont go back to sleep
Scene 4: In The Arc Of Your Mallet
Dont go anywhere without me.
Let nothing happen in the sky apart from me,
or on the ground, in this world or that world,
without my being in its happening.
Vision, see nothing I dont see.
Language, say nothing.
The way the night knows itself with the moon,
be that with me. Be the rose
nearest to the thorn that I am.
I want to feel myself in you when you taste food,
in the arc of your mallet when you work.
When you visit friends, when you go
up on the roof by yourself at night.
Theres nothing worse than to walk
out along the street without you.
I dont know where Im going.
Youre the road and the knower of roads,
more than maps, more than love.
Scene 5: My Worst Habit
My worst habit I get so tired of winter.
I became a torture to those Im with.
If youre not here, nothing grows.
I lack clarity.
My words wrangle and knot up.
How to cure bad water?
Send it back to the river.
How to cure bad habits?
Send me back to you.
When water gets caught in habitual whirlpools,
dig a way out through the bottom of the ocean.
There is a secret medicine given only to those
who hurt so hard they cant hope.
The hopers would feel slighted if they knew.

Look as long as you can at the friend you love,
no matter whether that friend is moving away from you
or coming back towards you.
Scene 6: Like This

If anyone asks you
how perfect satisfaction
of all your sexual wanting
will look, lift your face
and say,
Like this.
When someone mentions the gracefulness
of the night sky, climb up on the roof
and dance and say,
Like this?
If anyone wants to know what spirit is,
or what Gods fragrance means,
lean your head towards him or her.
Keep your face there close.
Like this.
When someone quotes the old poetic image
about clouds gradually uncovering the moon,
slowly loosen the knot strings
of your robe.
Like this?
If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead,
dont try to explain the miracle.
Kiss me on the lips.
Like this. Like this.
When someone asks what it means
to die for love, point
here.
If someone asks how tall I am, frown
and measure with your ngers the space
between the creases on your forehead.
This tall.
The soul sometimes leaves the body, the returns.
When someone doesnt believe that,
walk back into my house.
Like this.
When lovers moan,
theyre telling our story.
Like this.
I am a sky where spirits live.
Stare into the deepening blue,
while the breeze says a secret.
Like this.
When someone asks what there is to do,
light the candle in his hand.
Like this.
How did Josephs scent come to Jacob?
Huuuuu.
How did Jacobs sight return?
Huuuuu.
When Shams comes back from Tabriz,
hell put his head around the edge
of the door to surprise us.
Like this.
Scene 7: Stereogram
Scene 8: Let The Letter Read You
Why stay so long where your words are scattered
and doing no good. Ive sent a letter a day
for a hundred days. Either you dont read the mail,
or youve forgotten how to leave.
Let the letter read you. Come back.
No one understands who you are in that prison
for the stonefaced. Youve escaped,
but still you sit there like a falcon
on the window ledge. You are both water
and stream, but you think you need something
to drink like a lion or a deer.
How far is it? How far is the light of the moon
from the moon? How far is the taste of the candy
from the lips? Every second you give away light.
We accept. We like this market.
Your love is a sweet poison we ear from your hand
to dissolve and drain away the ego life
now spraying this fountain from us.
Scene 9: Boy, Beach and Ball
Scene 10: They Say That Paradise Will Be Perfect
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a eld. Ill meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesnt make any sense.
You dont have bad days and good days.
You dont sometimes feel brilliant and sometimes dumb.
Theres no studying, no scholarly thinking
having to do with love,
but there is a great deal of pufng, and secret touching,
and nights you cant remember at all.
When I die, lay out the corpse.
You may want to kiss my lips,
just beginning to decay.
Dont be frightened
if I open my eyes.
They say that Paradise will be perfect
with lots of clear white wine
and all the beautiful women.
We hold on to times like this then,
since this is how its going to be.
We have a huge barrel of wine, but no cups.
Thats ne with us. Every morning
we glow and in the evening we glow again.
They say theres no future for us.
Theyre right.
Which is ne with us.


At night we fall into each other with such grace.
When its light, you throw me back
like you do your hair.
Your eyes now drink with God,
mine with looking at you,
one drunkard takes care of another.
Scene 11: The New Rule
Theres an old rule that drunks have to argue
and get into ghts.
The lover is just as bad. He falls down a hole.
But down in that hole he nds something shining,
worth more than any amount of money or power.
Last night the moon came
dropping its clothes in the street.
I took it as a sign to start singing.
Falling up into the bowl of sky.
The bowl brakes. Everywhere is falling everywhere.
Nothing else to do.
Heres the new rule: break the wineglass.
And fall toward the glassblowers breath.
Scene 12: An Artist Comes To Paint You
Give yourself a kiss.
If you live in China, dont look
somewhere else, in Tibet, or Mongolia.
If you want to hold the beautiful one,
hold yourself to yourself.
When you kiss the Beloved,
touch your own lips with your ngers.
The beauty of every woman and every man
is your own beauty.
The confusion of your hair
obscures that sometimes.
An artist comes to paint you
and stands with his mouth open.
Your love reveals your beauty,
but all coverings would disappear
if only for a moment your holding back
would sit before your generosity
and ask,
Sir, who are You?
At that,
Shams life-changing face
gives you a wink.
Scene 13: Boy On Fire