Joseph Workman

“Don’t grieve for what doesn’t come. Some things that don’t happen keep disasters from happening.”
― Rumi, The Essential Rumi

“BURNT KABOB Last year, I admired wines. This,
I’m wandering inside the red world. Last year, I gazed at the fire.
This year I’m burnt kabob. Thirst drove me down to the water
where I drank the moon’s reflection. Now I am a lion staring up totally
lost in love with the thing itself. Don’t ask questions about longing.
Look in my face. Soul drunk, body ruined, these two
sit helpless in a wrecked wagon.
Neither knows how to fix it. And my heart, I’d say it was more
like a donkey sunk in a mudhole,
struggling and miring deeper. But listen to me: for one moment,
quit being sad. Hear blessings
dropping their blossoms
around you. God.”
― Rumi, The Essential Rumi

“It is necessary to be strong in the face of death, because death is intrinsic to life. It is for this reason that I tell my students: aim to be the person at your father’s funeral that everyone, in their grief and misery, can rely on. There’s a worthy and noble ambition: strength in the face of adversity.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“Things are not as easy to understand and say as we might prefer to believe; most events are inexpressible, happening in a space where no word has ever set foot, and most inexpressible of all are works of art, mysterious existences, whose life continues as ours passes away.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet