Dahlia

“You run back and forth listening for unusual events,
peering into the faces of travelers.
"Why are you looking at me like a madman?"
I have lost a friend. Please forgive me.”
― Rumi, The Essential Rumi

“But can you think of anyone who's not hazy with smoke?”
― Rumi, The Essential Rumi

“There is a secret medicine given only to those who hurt so hard they can't hope.”
― Rumi, The Essential Rumi

“The Ripe Fig

Now that You live here in my chest,
anywhere we sit is a mountaintop.

And those other images,
which have enchanted people
like porcelain dolls from China,
which have made men and women weep
for centuries, even those have changed now.

What used to be pain is a lovely bench
where we can rest under the roses.

A left hand has become a right.
A dark wall, a window.

A cushion in a shoe heel,
the leader of the community!

Now silence. What we say
is poison to some
and nourishing to others.

What we say is a ripe fig,
but not every bird that flies
eats figs.”
― Rumi, The Essential Rumi