“A Year With Rumi by Coleman Barks
A Basket of Fresh Bread (2)
There is a basket of fresh bread on your head,
yet you go door to door asking for crusts.
Knock on the inner door. No other.
Sloshing knee-deep in clear streamwater,
you keep wanting a drink from other poeple’s waterbags.
Water is everywhere around you,
but you see only barriers that keep you from water.
A horse is moving beneath the rider’s thighs,
yet still he asks, Where is my horse?
Right there, under you. Yes, this is a horse,
but where’s the horse? Can’t you see? Yes,
I can see, but whoever saw such a horse?
Mad with thirst, he cannot drink from the stream
running so close by his face.
He is like a pearl on the deep bottom
wondering, inside the shell, Where is the ocean?
His mental questionings form the barrier.
HIs physical eyesight bandages his knowing.
Self-consciousness plugs his ears.
Stay bewildered in God and only that.”
Elisa's Spot 
Where is my horse? Where is my basket? Where is my quinoa with raspberries and peaches and sprouted almonds and coconuts?
Gosh, I love this Rumi poem. Don’t know if I’ve ever heard it before. maybe the poem is already sitting inside of me and I’m going around saying, “Where is my poem, where is my poem?” and here it’s been all along.
LikeLike
Does here plus there equal everywhere? everything?
LikeLike
Here plus there equals what the moon thinks as it dives beneath a cloud. Love, a winking star.
LikeLike
On my Sat drive to/from Yoga, I forget which, I was listening to a cd called The Best of Sade. There is a song called “Like a Tattoo” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwOHxHrwM1U&feature=related) with these specific words – “Hungry for life And thirsty for the distant river” – that spoke to me, like this poem.
“There is a basket of fresh bread on your head,
yet you go door to door asking for crusts.”
“Water is everywhere around you, but you see only barriers that keep you from water.”
LikeLike