Your old grandmother says, "Maybe you shouldn’t
go to school. You look a little pale."

Run when you hear that.
A father’s stern slaps are better.

Your bodily soul wants comforting.
The severe father wants spiritual clarity.

He scolds but eventually
leads you into the open.

Pray for a tough instructor
to hear and act and stay within you.

Deliberation

A friend remarks to the Prophet, "Why is it
I get screwed in business deals?
It’s like a spell. I become distracted
by business talk and make the wrong decision."

Muhammad replies, "Stipulate with every transaction
that you need three days to make sure."

Deliberation is one of the qualities of God.
Throw a dog a bit of something.
He sniffs to see if he wants it.

Be that careful.
Sniff with your wisdom-nose.
Get clear. Then decide.

The universe came into being gradually
over six days. God could have just commanded,
Be!

Little by little a person reaches forty and fifty
and sixty, and feels more complete. God could have decreed
full-blown prophets flying through the cosmos in an instant.

Jesus said one word, and a dead man sat up,
but creation usually unfolds,
like calm breakers.

Constant, slow movement teaches us to keep working
like a small creek that stays clear,
that doesn’t stagnate, but finds a way
through numerous details, deliberately.

Deliberation is born of joy,
like a bird from an egg.
Birds don’t resemble eggs!
Think how different the hatching out is.

A white leather snake egg, a sparrow’s egg;
a quince seed, an apple seed: very different things
look similar at one stage.

These leaves, our bodily personalities, seem identical,
but the globe of soul fruit
we make,
each is elaborately unique.




Copyright © 1995 by Coleman Barks

From The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne et al. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995). Used by arrangement with HarperSanFrancisco, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.