Sunday, January 30, 2011

A Dumb Experiment


Break open your personal self
to taste the story of the nutmeat soul.

These voices come from that rattling
against the outer shell.

The nut and the oil inside
have voices that can only be heard
with another kind of listening.

If it weren't for the sweetness of the nut,
the inner talking, who would ever shake a walnut?

We listen to words
so we can silently
reach into the other.

Let the ear and mouth get quiet,
so this taste can come to the lip.

Too long we have been saying poetry,
talking discourses, explaining the mystery outloud.

Let us try a dumb experiment.

4 comments:

  1. Yes, taste the mystery. It need not be spoken.

    And relax, you think too much.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sometimes it's good to put the intellect to bed for a while. What a relief.

    ReplyDelete
  3. you know Ruthi, in Allah of ways Rumi is actually very lucky he is already dead, because as God as my witness, if he even just implies that I am dumb one more time... :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. hi, i translated the poem to portuguese and even took the picture with it :)
    hope you don't mind and thank you so much !!

    ReplyDelete

At the request of a Rumi Reader, I have enabled comments, because I agree that someone, sometime might want to write about the power of Rumi's words. So many times they have met me in ways I just have to share, and so I want you to have that opportunity here. There is no expectation for comments, but please do write something if you feel the urge. ~ Ruth