Saturday, April 15, 2017

#PoetryBreak: Fasting

A Trailer. (M.A. Reilly, California, 2011
(On the occasion of starting a fast today.)

FASTING 



      - Rumi


There’s hidden sweetness in the stomach’s emptiness.
We are lutes, no more, no less. If the soundbox
is stuffed full of anything, no music.
If the brain and the belly are burning clean
with fasting, every moment a new song comes out of the fire.
The fog clears, and new energy makes you
run up the steps in front of you.
Be emptier and cry like reed instruments cry.
Emptier, write secrets with the reed pen.
When you’re full of food and drink, an ugly metal
statue sits where your spirit should. When you fast,
good habits gather like friends who want to help.
Fasting is Solomon’s ring. Don’t give it
to some illusion and lose your power,
but even if you have, if you’ve lost all will and control,
they come back when you fast, like soldiers appearing
out of the ground, pennants flying above them.
A table descends to your tents,
Jesus’ table.
Expect to see it, when you fast, this table
spread with other food, better than the broth of cabbages.


6 comments:

  1. I love these lines:
    Be emptier and cry like reed instruments cry.
    Emptier, write secrets with the reed pen.
    One does feel closer to something holy when one is empty, I think.

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  2. I love the image....it is hard to tell if it is a painting or a photo. I love the contrast of colors and the trailer....to the far left.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's both. I made the image while in California. Began as a photograph I took and then morphed.

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    2. I would like to just hang with you and create....learn....absorb. :)

      Delete

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