The spam email was simple. Subject: Why?
Body: Answer me. And I thought of Einstein,
who wrote a brief letter to Miss Marion Block,
a woman who had written first to him,
overcome as she was by two world wars.
He wrote: The question “Why” in the human sphere
is easy to answer: to create satisfaction
for ourselves and for other people.
Almost 800 years earlier,
Rumi answered the same question, saying,
Oh soul, you worry too much.
I, too, like Miss Block, like the spammer,
like the soul, I, too, have stood beneath the stars
and asked Why, Why?
And this week, I received in the mail
a typed letter signed from The Universe,
saying, You know this, but may have forgotten:
you have been given a special task
to complete on Earth … the world needs you.
And the words from The Universe
leap from the page to form new constellations
inside me and I see so clearly
that I am one of many, many stars,
no longer capable of thinking I’m in this for myself,
certain that we shine for each other.