Sunday, February 16, 2014

Unfold


"Who gets up early 
to discover the moment light begins?
Who finds us here circling, bewildered, like atoms?
Who comes to a spring thirsty
and sees the moon reflected in it?
Who, like Jacob blind with grief and age,
smells the shirt of his lost son
and can see again?
Who lets a bucket down and brings up
a flowing prophet?
Or like Moses goes for fire
and finds what burns inside the sunrise?


Jesus slips into a house to escape enemies,
and opens a door to the other world.
Solomon 
cuts open a fish, and there's a gold ring. 
Omar storms in to kill the prophet
and leaves with blessings.
Chase a deer and end up everywhere!
An oyster opens his mouth to swallow one drop.
Now there's a pearl.
A vagrant wanders empty ruins.
Suddenly he's wealthy.


But don't be satisfied with stories, how things
have gone with others. Unfold
your own myth, without complicated explanation,
so everyone will understand the passage,
We have opened you.


Start walking toward Shams. Your legs will get heavy and tired.
Then comes a moment of feeling 
the wings you have grown,
lifting."

The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks.

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