God turns you from one feeling to another
and teaches by means of opposites,
so that you will have two wings to fly,
not one.
–Rumi
I am stone and I am river.
I am here and I am gone.
I am the apple and the hunger.
I am lost and I am found.
I am harlot and the pure one.
I am chosen. I’m tossed out.
I am mystery and revelation.
I am certainty and doubt.
I’m the one you love,
you hate me, too,
I am leaf and the space
where the leaf once was.
I am thief and I restore things.
I am the anchor and the wave.
And I am the song, the song
that stays in your mind
long after you’ve told it to leave.
And I am the silence, the silence
you welcome and the silence you fill
with anything, anything
just to keep the silence away.
I am not myself.
I am more you than I am me.
And we, we are flying,
we are flying, love,
we are the sky, we are the wings.
like how at the end you return full-circle to the rumi quote. yet, even without the intro by rumi, those closing lines are, none at all any less, translucent, sublime, and oh such a closing note filling and being the silence that embraces us and holds us safely softly close.
Nice rhythm, especially up front. Apple and hunger are so perfect, because I’m eating an apple as I read this. Yum. Crisp words, and that roundness abounds in the poem.