Elegant simplicity of divine life force

Only Breath

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu

Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion

or cultural system. I am not from the East

or the West, not out of the ocean or up

from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not

composed of elements at all. I do not exist,

am not an entity in this world or in the next,

did not descend from Adam and Eve or any

origin story. My place is placeless, a trace

of the traceless. Neither body or soul.

I belong to the beloved, have seen the two

worlds as one and that one call to and know,

first, last, outer, inner, only that

breath breathing human being.

From Essential Rumi  by Coleman Barks

http://peacefulrivers.homestead.com/Rumipoetry1.html#anchor_13840

Stephanie Doty
Weary of Wonderland
July 26, 2014
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/