Poetry by Rumi (that can be seen whose work this poem responds to)

by Cenacle

Posted to Poetry on 2002-03-23 09:15:00

Parent message is 148048
Jalaluddin Rumi (1207-1273)

Where Everything Is Music

Don’t worry about saving these songs!
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn’t matter.

We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.

The strumming and the flute notes
rise into the atmosphere,
and even if the whole world’s harp
should burn up, there will still be
hidden instruments playing.

So the candle flickers and goes out.
We have a piece of flint, and a spark.

This singing art is sea foam.
The graceful movements come from a pearl
somewhere on the ocean floor.

Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge
of driftwood along the beach, wanting!

They derive
from a slow and powerful root
that we can’t see.

Stop the words now.
Open the window in the center of your chest,
and let the spirits fly in and out.

******

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

******

Jars of Springwater

Jars of springwater are not enough
anymore. Take us down to the river!

The face of peace, the sun itself.
No more the slippery cloudlike moon.

Give us one clear morning after another
and the one whose work remains unfinished,

who is our work as we diminish, idle,
though occupied, empty, and open.


******

A Reed

A craftsman pulled a reed from the reedbed,
cut holes in it, and called it a human being.

Since then, it’s been wailing a tender agony
of parting, never mentioning the skill
that gave it life as a flute.

******

From the Inside

I have lived on the lip
of insanity
knocking on the door.

It opens.

I have been knocking from the inside.

******

Quatrains

Don’t let your throat tighten
with fear. Take sips of breath
all day and night. Before death
closes your mouth.

There’s no love in me without your being,
no breath without that. I once thought

I could give up this longing, then thought again,
But I couldn’t continue being human.

******


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