Wednesday, February 23, 2011

When I Am with You

 The Moonrise, Mamaroneck, by Edward J. Steichen

When I am with you, we stay up all night.
When you are not here, I can't go to sleep.

Praise God for these two insomnias.
And the difference between them.

3 comments:

Elisabeth said...

One insomnia I take it is by choice, the other is imposed upon the non-sleeper.

Interesting that Rumi should thank god for both, understandable his gratitude for the difference between.

Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillow said...

The Metropolitan Museum in NYC used to have two, slightly different, Moonrise images by Steichen. One was auctioned off (for nearly 3 million dollars!) in 2006. I wonder what the now separated photos would have to say about the Rumi quote.

There is an interesting article on this seminal work here.

steven said...

it's interesting to read and reread this with inflections changing on the word "can't". change that one word's delivery and the essence of the poem changes each time. steven