[1334] Where Everything Is Music

Guest poem submitted by Sashidhar Dandamudi, <sashi@>:

Don't worry about saving these songs!
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn't matter.

We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.

The strumming and the flute notes
rise into the atmosphere,
and even if the whole world's harp
should burn up, there will still be
hidden instruments playing.

So the candle flickers and goes out.
We have a piece of flint, and a spark.

This singing art is sea foam.
The graceful movements come from a pearl
somewhere on the ocean floor.

Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge
of driftwood along the beach, wanting!

They derive
from a slow and powerful root
that we can't see.

Stop the words now.
Open the window in the center of your chest,
and let the spirits fly in and out.

	-- Jalaluddin Rumi

Translated by Coleman Barks.

Mallika's "song" bought this fantastic poem up from memory. Even though
I can't claim to have memorized it, the last verse has been a long time
favourite of mine. Also since summer, usually for me, consists of
absorbing a dose of live music as it happens around the city, often a
time I remembered song at those moments of transendent guitar riffs,
when I could only open the window in the center of my chest and let the
spirits fly in and out!

Onwards!
Sashi

Notes:

This poem was a part of the PBS Program "Fooling with Words". I would
also reccomend the viewers to go listen and view to "Jump Mama" here:
	http://www.pbs.org/wnet/foolingwithwords/main_video.html

[this poem is archived, accessible and awaiting your comments at]
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1334.html
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From: Alkemygirl@

This is one of the most beautiful poems in the world!  

Thank you for sharing it and reminding us that despite global tragedies that 
scar spirits, there is still a place where the fragile wind carries notes of 
blissful oneness with the universe and each other.

And in this brief, yet ethereal harmony, everything is music.   Everything.

From: Deepak Srinivasan <dsrinivasan2000@>

this is one of those poems that requires very little
commentary since it is so easy to identify with.
thank you for sharing this gem with the rest of us.

From: Deepak.Srinivasan@  Fri Aug 29 16:33:14 2003

a wonderful celebration of music and its power to give joy to the heart.
thank you for sharing this delightful poem with us.
/Deepak