YOUR GRIEF

Your grief for what you've lost lifts a mirror

up to where you’re bravely working.

Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,

here’s the joyful face you've been wanting to see.

Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.

If it were always a fist or always stretched open,

you would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small

contracting and expanding,

the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated

as bird-wings.

From The Essential Rumi

translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne

IS THE ONE I LOVE EVERYWHERE?

There's a strange frenzy in my head,

of birds flying,

each particle circulating on its own.

Is the one I love everywhere?

From The Essential Rumi

translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne