Saturday, February 23, 2013


Who is the luckiest in this whole orchestra?  The reed.
Its mouth touches your lips to learn music.
All reeds, sugarcane especially, think only of this chance.
They sway in the canebrakes,
free in the many ways they dance.

Without you, the instruments would die.
One sits close beside you.  Another takes a long kiss.
The tambourine begs, Touch my skin, so I can be myself.

Let me feel you enter each limb bone by bone,
that what died last night can be whole today.


-- Rumi
(in Rumi: The Big Red Book, 
translated by Coleman Barks)

Saturday, February 16, 2013


I empty out whatever blocks a clear note.
Not a food sack, I am a reed flute.
There is no cure for this soul but you . . .


-- Rumi
(in Rumi: The Big Red Book, 
translated by Coleman Barks)

Saturday, February 9, 2013


Look at the overcast sky.  It is not the splendor of feeling near.
We have been lazy.  We should either disband altogether,
or not stay apart so long.

Let music loosen our deafness to spirit.
Play and let play.


-- Rumi
(in Rumi: The Big Red Book, 
translated by Coleman Barks)

Saturday, February 2, 2013


A deep sweetness comes through sugarcane,
into the cut reed,
and now it is in the empty notes of the flute.
                   . . . .
Let wind blow through us.


-- Rumi
(in Rumi: The Big Red Book, 
translated by Coleman Barks)