Sunday, July 30, 2023

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 still will 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.

 --Rumi
translation: Coleman Barks
BK photo

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