where everything is music

A wish for a very special person and to all of you as the old year turns into the new year, facing the pandemic's Year #3:

open the window in the center of your chest, and let the spirit fly in and out.

My best to al of you for the end of 2021 and for a whole brand new, pristine year. Und Herzlichen Glückwunsch, liebe Angi!

Don’t worry about saving these songs!
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn’t matter.

We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.

The strumming and the flute notes
rise into the atmosphere,
and even if the whole world’s harp
should burn up, there will still be
hidden instruments playing.

So the candle flickers and goes out.
We have a piece of flint, and a spark.

This singing art is sea foam.
The graceful movements come from a pearl
somewhere on the ocean floor.

Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge
of driftwood along the beach, wanting!

They derive
from a slow and powerful root
that we can’t see.

Stop the words now.
Open the window in the center of your chest,
and let the spirit fly in and out.

 

by Rumi – translated by Coleman Barks and John Moyne