Who gets up early
to discover the moment
light begins?
Who finds us here, circling bewildered like atoms?
Who come to a spring thirsty,
and finds 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 poems
and stories of 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 towards Shams.
Your legs will get heavy
and tired. Then comes a moment
of feeling the wings you've grown,
lifting.
-- Rumi, from, The Illuminated Rumi
(Shams was the living teacher of Rumi.)
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