Make Room for Rumi!

posted 2/22/2007
There is a fabulous chapter in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (author, Douglas Adams) where the protagonist, Ford Prefect is being held prisoner on a Vogon Intergalactic Destroyer. The Commander of the spaceship has given Ford the option of a) listening to him read poetry that he, the Commander, has written himself or b) being shot out into cold, dark, infinite hyperspace to face certain death. Ultimately, Prefect realizes that there are some fates worse than death, and one of them is listening to poetry.

You may very well share this same sentiment. Poetry can be really maudlin and tedious. You may find yourself not really caring whether Poe's darling Annabel Lee was chilled and killed by the cold sea air, or whether she met her demise in a clinic in Thailand after her liposuction went terribly wrong. Just so long as she expires and you don’t have to read a poem about the tragedy. Likewise, William Carlos Williams can play with his red wagon or his red wheelbarrow or his red rubber ball all day long if he wants, but, for the love of the Almighty, please let him keep it to himself.

I am sympathetic. I've read a lot of poetry in my ne'er (that's poetry for "never") ending attempt to develop a patina of literary sophistication. Truth to tell, I'm not much moved by poetry that requires a doctorate in Classics or Ancient History to interpret it, or poems that are overly sentimental. I'm not smart enough for the first, and I'm perfectly capable of writing my own schmaltzy heart-wringing verse in the second. (I'll be happy to send you my poetry upon request. Really. I don't mind. No, no. It's no trouble. Perhaps I could even READ it to you. Call me.)

Deeply troubled poets who hope to share their misery through their work do not find a sympathetic audience with me, either. If you insist on writing anthologies of excruciating poetry that detail your unmitigating despondency and isolation, I will not share in your pain. I will be compelled to send you one of MY poems that tells you of my formative years in the Rust Belt, living in Potter's Trailer Court in an aqua single-wide with mentally unstable relatives under eight feet of snow. Then we'll see who comes out ahead in the game of "my life makes such depressing poetry."

But, "ours is not a caravan of despair" and there are plenty of bright stars in the poetic pantheon. Mary Oliver has the touch of a poetic healer. She can melt anyone's crusty poetry-hating resolve and reveal the soft chewy center underneath. Oliver lulls us in Wild Geese:

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
Love what it loves.

Haiku, the precise word sculpture of Japan, is a jewel of Zen. Nibble, if you will, on the canapés of the haiku gods, Basho, Issa and Buson.

A bee
staggers out
Of the peony
-Basho

The snail gets up
and goes to bed
With very little fuss
-Issa

Calligraphy of geese
against the sky –
The moon seals it
-Buson

I am fond of William Butler Yeats. He experienced more than his fair share of unrequited love, and much of his poetry reflects a sad yearning. If a poet has been lucky in love, I think his/her work may lack a certain tortured quality, or bitterness that can only be conveyed by a writer who has sustained heavy losses in affairs of the heart. This is Yeats' A Drinking Song:

Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That's all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you and I sigh.

Here is the last stanza from The Song of Wandering Aengus:

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk along long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

If you’re of a mind to be truly heartbroken and engage in a moment of sad reflection on all that you have loved and lost, may I suggest a snippet of W.H. Auden from Master and Boatswain:

The nightingales are sobbing in
The orchards of our mothers,
And hearts that we broke long ago
Have long been breaking others;

I also have a soft spot for e.e. cummings. Ever since I shredded his words in competitive poetry interpretation in high school, I have appreciated his singular lilt and innocence. From somewhere i have never traveled:

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain. has such small hands

One might enjoy a quick wallow in a little in T.S. Elliot, despite his insistence on wearing the bottoms of his trousers rolled when he grows old, which seems like a pointless experiment in delayed gratification (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock). After all, you can go out and wear your trousers rolled right now if you must. Go ahead, T.S....no one is holding you back. Turn up those pants.

I have read John Updike's poem Dog’s Death many times. Read it and see if you can get past "and her heart was learning to lie down forever" without sobbing. I have yet to pass over that line without being hit by a wave of grief. That's great poetry for you – plays you out, reels you in and guts your insides, and it's not even your dog.

But you know, whatever your tolerance, or lack thereof, for poetry, you must make room some time in your life for Rumi.

Rumi was a Sufi mystic and poet, born in 1207 in what is now Northern Afghanistan. Fleeing just ahead of the armies of Ghengis Khan, Rumi's scholarly family settled in central Turkey. There, his religious awareness expanded after meeting the teacher and meditator, Shams Tabriz. Although Rumi had been raised within the Islamic tradition, his friendship with Tabriz opened him to a spiritual consciousness that was independent of a fixed doctrine. Rumi became a devoted worshipper of life and his poetry reflects his profound faith.

Next September 30 marks the 800th anniversary of his birth. I cannot begin to imagine the beauty his poems might convey in the original Persian. But even when mulched through the industrial-strength translation chipper of English, the clarity of his words is so bright and translucent that even today, they make your heart yearn for something it does not quite comprehend.

The most soaring aspect to Rumi's poetry is that the reader can enter his garden through the portcullis of spiritual hunger or through the side gate of romantic longing. Is Rumi searching so passionately for union with God or for surrender to his lover? Either way, Rumi's poetry speaks to the psychic hollow vessel that we hold hoping to fill with love...the human craving for what is Divine in both the spirit and the body.

Here is Rumi at his most poignant (translation by Coleman Barks):

Come to the orchard in Spring.
There is light and wine, and sweethearts
in the pomegranate flowers.
If you do not come, these do not matter.
If you do come, these do not matter.

Rumi speaks of the longing for Oneness so profoundly that you feel you are transformed and, somehow, made more complete by sharing his desire. The next is a wedding poem, not so well known, but so perfect (translation unknown to me):

May these vows and this marriage be blessed.
May it be sweet milk, this marriage, like wine and halvah.
May this marriage offer fruit and shade, like the desert palm.
May this marriage be full of laughter, our every day a day in paradise.
May this marriage be a sign of compassion – a seal of happiness,
here and hereafter.
May this marriage have a fair face and a good name, an omen as welcomed
as the moon in a clear blue sky.

A girl could really choke up at that. And

Come, come, whoever you are,
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving –
It doesn’t matter
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vows a
Hundred times
Come, come again, come.

Coleman Barks, foremost translator of Rumi's works, has compiled a book, A Year with Rum, in honor of his birth. There are 365 poems in this little gem, and Rumi is, typically, quite economical with his words. I'm telling you, this is a bargain as far as expanding your poetic sensibilities and rooting around in "the soft animal of your body."

Rumi's poems are short, perfect and they will take to a place you did not even know you wanted to go.

Perhaps poetry is not your thing, and you find it a bit too delicate or airy to satisfy you at the end of a challenging day doing whatever you do with your days. I grok that not everyone will relate to a stroll through the pomegranates. But Rumi's poems have the holy power to break your heart wide open. There are very few written words that have that kind of impact after 800 years – Rumi is timeless.

Meet me at the oasis...a little Rumi every day is good for your soul.

Notes-to-Self 2: The biographical information herein is attributed to Coleman Barks, A Year with Rumi (published by HarperSanFrancisco, 2006) as are the English translations of Rumi’s poems. The critique of Rumi’s work, such as it is, is my own.

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Ingrid is currently living and respectably employed in Austin, Texas with a firm specializing in environmental law. She hopes to get back home to the San Juan Islands next spring to stay.
While Ingrid is spiritually promiscuous, she credits her guru, Jimmy Buffet, for her mantra..."If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane." Besides a passion for Tiki Studies, Ingrid is borderline biblio-obsessive. She is an old-school Libran - i.e., she won't be leading the Revolution, but she'll work to make it an attractive affair and hire the musicians and caterers."

Her column appears every other Thursday in San Juan Islander. To contact Ingrid, send emails to ingrid@sanjuanislander.com

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