"Listen for the stream
that tells you one thing."
— Rumi.


How long can the perched Nightingale sing with a slit throat?
An iron taste in each bitter note; hard to swallow, —
Harder to quote!

And it rose because you entertained those thoughts too.

The honeydew rots beside that spill;
Need not these feathers remember the thrill?
Bitter with each taste, the beginnings! This deafening shrill
In false embrace, touching rapture's fiery red with a burning haste!

And it rose because solitude remembers everything I wrote.

The white faded under the scarlet smear of inky Sanskrit; I write about
You as if I'm a Dervish writing about their love walking along the sky; the brink
Of sunrise,— sunset!
And I'm never too far behind without wine.
Its the same I write of you every time!

And it rose because I can't touch a god the same as I can't touch you.

Upon seeing you with your own sweet Halvah,
I no longer prayed for Qais and Laila,
For they shared love, but never touched. Just like the Sufi poet and Allah,
Where one can only see, and one can only dream,
While floating along the stream.

And now I know I'm the fool for letting the feathers touch the wine,
Because it rose; those feathers rose too with time.

Because it rose, —
And rose,
And rose.