one sip of an answer / 10:40 am

Time is strange, how it passes so quickly and slowly with no warning. It slips between cracks, it hides in the floorboards as soon as I turn on the light. And there are so many ways to measure it... seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years with clocks and calendars and deadlines... always rushing it seems. I want it to flow rather than rush. My trouble, as I've written so many times before, lies in not being able to live in the present. I do things in the present and I carry out tasks in the present, but my mind is always scrambling for the past or being whisked away on the future. This isn't good, I know. I know that I need to live in the present and that's something I'd like to achieve this summer. 

Today my cousin Christopher sent me a youtube video of a poem by Rumi called "Who Says Words With My Mouth." Watch the movie fullscreen and then read the poem... then maybe reread it aloud. It's something to savor and it is one of the most beautiful and meaningful pieces of writing I've read in awhile. I italicized my favorite parts. The funny thing is that every time I go to a bookstore I see books of Rumi's poetry and I almost always buy one. I won't resist next time.

All day I think about it, then at night I say it.

Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?

I have no idea.

My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that,

and I intend to end up there.

This drunkenness began in some other tavern.

When I get back around to that place,

I'll be completely sober.  Meanwhile,

I'm like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary.

The day is coming when I fly off,

but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?

Who says words with my mouth?

Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?

I cannot stop asking.

If I could taste one sip of an answer,

I could break out of this prison for drunks.

I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way.

Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.

This poetry, I never know what I'm going to say.

I don't plan it.

When I'm outside the saying of it,

I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.

The video is also wonderful. I love where it takes me. I became lost in it. Thank you, Christopher, for sharing this with me.