Tuesday… and some more inspired lines from the great Rumi…
Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī, جلالالدین محمد بلخى

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From the beginning of my life
I have been looking for your face
but today I have seen it
Today I have seen
the charm, the beauty,
the unfathomable grace
of the face
that I was looking for.

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Burdens are the foundations of ease and bitter things the
forerunners of pleasure.

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Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you would be paralyzed.
Your deepest presence 
is
in every small contracting and expanding,
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as bird wings.

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In the body of the world, they say, there is a soul
and you are that.

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Late by myself, in the boat by myself
No light and no land anywhere
cloud cover thick, I try to stay
just above the surface, but I am already under
and living in the ocean of your love.

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Since I was cut from the reedbed,
I have made this crying sound.
Anyone apart from someone he loves
understands what I say.
Anyone pulled from a source
longs to go back.

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A rose’s rarest essence lives in the thorn.

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I died as a mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was Man.
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?

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You were born with potential
You were born with goodness and trust
You were born with ideals and dreams
You were born with greatness
You were born with wings
You are not meant for crawling, so don’t.
You have wings
Learn to use them, and fly.

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What was whispered to the rose
To break it open
Last night
Was whispered to my heart

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We are the mirror as well as the face in it.
We are tasting the taste this minute of eternity.
We are pain and what cures pain both.
We are the sweet cold water and the jar that pours.

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Since you will come
and throw kisses
at my tombstone later
why not give them to me now
this is me
that same person.

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