(Okay, okay, so it’s a day late.)

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.

- Rumi
(Coleman Barks translation)

(This is my participation for the Second Annual Brigid in Cyberspace Poetry Reading. I wasn’t feeling too creative today, so I decided to share a classic from Rumi instead.)

Edit: Apparently 2007 has also been declared International Rumi Year by UNESCO. So there ya go.