Rumi | Reflections on the Teche

Posts Tagged ‘Rumi’

Poetry Friday: A Mother is Home

Posted in Poetry Friday, tagged mother poem, Rumi, Sunday Poetry Swaggers on December 4, 2020| 15 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Mary Lee at A Year of Reading.

This month, Molly Hogan challenged the Sunday Night Swaggers to write a poem from a favorite line. The prompt can be found here. The idea is to find a line from a book or poem and use the line as your title. Write the poem, then change the title.

I recently had a pleasant email exchange with a friend. She sent me this Rumi poem, The Guest House. I took the line “This human being is a guest house.”

Mothers are on my mind lately as my oldest daughter gave birth to her second child, a daughter, on Monday, Nov. 30th. I was able to be there with her. There is nothing as wonderful and miraculous as childbirth. The baby, Stella Ross, did not cry. She was plump and pink and fine, but she didn’t cry. Amazing! She has since cried, but only when she’s uncomfortable, and she settles back down easily. She is truly an angel from heaven.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks

Mother is Home
Mothers welcome
a child’s tears
with embrace.
Joy lives here, too,
unexpected grace
of forgiveness.
She carries your furniture,
dusts it with lemon-scented Pledge,
scrubs the mud from the floor
you tread.
You do not have to be grateful.
You don’t have to say, “I love you.”
You don’t have to say anything.
She will hold your hand,
kiss the scratch, place the band-aid on.
No flourish.
She is your home.
Margaret Simon, draft

Read other poems from this challenge:

Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core
Molly Hogan at Nix the Comfort Zone
Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe
Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise

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Slice of Life: New Worlds

Posted in Slice of Life, tagged marriage, Rumi on April 11, 2017| 15 Comments »

Join the Two Writing Teachers blog for the Slice of Life Challenge.

I’m failing in my attempt to write a poem a day. It all happened when my spring break started. In truth, I’ve only been off one day, but without my schedule and my students, I feel uninspired. We crave this kind of time, a wide open day to write, and when that time happens, nothing. Blank page.

I have no choice but to give my brain this break it wants. I’ll take a walk and perhaps a muse will come. If I’ve learned anything about being a writer, it is this: writing happens in its own time.

This weekend my husband and I attended a wedding for a friend’s son. We enjoyed relaxing and not being in charge of anything. During the ceremony, the priest read a Rumi poem and talked about how this couple was crossing the threshold to a new world, a world that they would live in together.

Don’t go back to sleep

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.

Rumi

I started thinking about how our world has changed, how change is inevitable, how change is the only constant. Within the last 6 months, two of my daughters have gotten married. Their worlds have changed. My day to day hasn’t changed, but as I look forward to the Easter holiday this weekend, I realize that our family is larger now. We have two sons as well as three daughters. In so many ways this new world is wonderful, and it will continue to grow and change.

I accept this new world.
I embrace the memories of each gathering.
And love the we
we have become.

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Slice of Life: Bookstore Magic

Posted in Slice of Life, Writing, tagged Blue Cypress Books, Little Free Library, Rumi on January 17, 2017| 16 Comments »

Join the Two Writing Teachers blog for the Slice of Life Challenge.

New Orleans Little Free Library

I took the opportunity of an extra day this weekend to visit my daughters in New Orleans. My cousin and his family met me for lunch on Monday. Then we headed over to Blue Cypress Books, an uptown used book store. I listened while my cousin’s wife read aloud to her second grader. I pulled favorite books off the shelf to suggest to the 5th grader. We made our book stacks.

“Mom, how many books can we get?”

“When it comes to books, we don’t set a limit. We look at which ones we really want to read.”

I wandered over to the poetry section. Have you ever had a book call out to you? Say, “Here I am waiting for you!”

I picked up “A Year with Rumi” and opened to January 17th. How did Rumi know that this was the poem I needed today? Book magic happens in used bookstores.

rumi

On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day I also bought two quote magnets. Bookstore magic.

bookstore-finds

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NPM16 #29: Words

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Teaching, Writing, tagged #imagepoems, Mary Oliver, nature poem, Rumi, steal like an artist, word groups on April 29, 2016| 11 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up at Buffy’s Blog.

Where do you find words? I am always in search of the right words, whether I am writing a poem or a blog post or a Facebook message. The right words in the right order.

As I sat next to Vannisa while she revised a poem to enter into a 4-H poetry contest, she and I stared at the screen. She was looking for the last stanza, the inner thinking, that punch of an ending. Where were the words she need?

I pulled out a precious Mary Oliver book from the shelf, A Thousand Mornings. Vanissa swept her hand over the cover. She knows it feels soft, like silk. I read aloud the last lines of some of Mary Oliver’s poems. I was teaching Vannisa how to “steal like an artist.”

This is the list we made:

earth-praise
temple
my heart
angels singing

I can’t share her final draft because we’ve sent it in. Maybe she will win. But we both won when we sat together with the master Mary Oliver and celebrated the right words.

As I continue to write a poem a day (Just one more day, folks!), I decided to use these stolen words in a poem of my own.

Melody

The male cardinal
wakes us every morning
with his earth-praise–
monotone,
happy tone
morning music making.

I nudge the cat
to move off my foot
stretch out of bed
while you stay, softly snoring.

Coffee brews.
The day wakes.
My body is still tired.

But this cardinal
is determined in his glory-making.
He persists
until I turn and see
angels

singing along
in his tree-temple
making melody
of the morning.

–Margaret Simon