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Under the Glow of Rumi's Stars

The poet Rumi says that the whole business of love is to drown in a sea, to hear in your soul's ear a drum which sounds from the depths of the stars.

But for me, all I can think of is yesterday, the milk cooling my coffee and the click clack of your spoon against the walls of my cup. I ruminate not of locked edens and the fleshy fruits of love, but of late night TV and your joke about the president. Blessed eternity, for us, is one season in the same city, a year in the same state. Isolation from the uncomprehending world is a night away from our dear child and the luxury of a closed bedroom door.

Love for me in not moon glow faces and rosebud lips. Love is socks with holes in toes and legs that lock with mine. That tape you play again and again. Pirate jokes and cases of coke. The window of my father's house and long stretches of road. That youth hostel in New Orleans. The scent of you mothers detergent. Rings that no longer fit fingers, diamond flakes. Your homework mixed with mine. A stretch of Florida beach and cooing our daughter to sleep.

Rumi says to be clear-hearted, to polish our hearts with the edge of our love so that truth may be mirrored. But my heart is murky with tears (not pearls) that outline the submerged secrets we do not share and the old nights that we do not discuss. I think of you, whom I will see tomorrow despite, and whom will trail rough fingertips over my bare nape and smile when I shiver.

I thank Rumi for the delightful distraction, for the fragrant daydream. His delicious words bring my spirit pleasure. Yet for all his stars and gardens, I would not trade a single day of our ordinary love. For ordinary days lead to nights that sweat and moan and the dreams that we cohabitate under the glow of Rumi's stars.

posted by Scribbler @ Wednesday, August 11, 2004