“Be nothing,”
says Rumi,
and I say,
“But …”
I am thinning
the carrots,
crowded in the row,
and I wonder
who will thin them
if I am nothing.
“I did not say
do nothing,”
he says. “Be nothing.”
“But …” I say.
The ground
is damp and
the carrots pull
easily from the soil,
their bright orange
roots already thick
enough to eat.
They are sweet,
and I offer
one to Rumi
who eats it
dirt and all.
“Be a spot of ground
where nothing
is growing,” he says,
“where something
might be planted,
perhaps a seed
from the absolute.”
He tosses the greens
to the ground.
I look between
my hands
to the nothing
beneath the greens
and perhaps
for a moment
I feel what he means,
but too soon
a thought
of knowing comes in
and there I go
being
something again.
*Rumi quotes adapted from “The Absolute Works with Nothing” translated by Coleman Barks.