During a morning walk through the garden, watering the plants and thinking of the day ahead, I found myself wrapped in the words of Rumi.
and only that.
simplify your worrying lives. There is one
righteousness: Water the fruit trees,
and don’t water the thorns. Be generous
to what nurtures the spirit and God’s luminous
reason-light. Don’t honor what causes
dysentery and knotted-up tumors.
Don’t feed both sides of yourself equally.
The spirit and the body carry different loads
and require different attentions.
we put saddlebags on Jesus and let the donkey
run loose in the pasture.
on the spirit that the body could carry easily.
“Wherever you are, whatever you do, be in love.”
Or as my mom would say, “bloom where you are planted.” Today, I choose happiness.
I find it fascinating Rumi was Muslim, but spent much of his poetry discussion Christianity. He was actually from Italy, but once he landed in Turkey was given the name “Rumi” which means “from Rome.”
I am so enjoying the poems you’ve sent. One of my girlfriends is a librarian and she has a mad passion for poetry. She was explaining how she celebrates “poems in your pocket” day at her school. She hands poems out to students in the hopes of spurring their interest. When I found a Pablo Neruda sonnet in my planner as a meeting was drawing to a close yesterday, I read it aloud a colleague. He looked at me as though I’d lost my mind, but I doubt he’ll soon forget it.
~K