THE TENT
—Rumi
Outside, the freezing desert night.
This other night inside grows warm, kindling.
Let the landscape be covered with thorny crust.
We have a soft garden in here.
The continents blasted,
cities and little towns, everything
become a scorched, blackened ball.
The news we hear is full of grief for that future,
but the real news inside here
is there's no news at all.
***
Friend, our closeness is this:
anywhere you put your foot, feel me
in the firmness under you.
How is it with this love,
I see your world and not you?
***
Listen to presences inside poems,
let them take you where they will.
Follow those private hints,
and never leave the premises.
(translated from the Persian by Coleman Barks)
___________________
—Medusa
