Taking Hold of the Cloth

Yes, I’ve been wandering the transparent places.  This morning it’s lost and found with Rumi.

Not that I fully understand.

But my arms are outstretched, taking hold…

Lovers think they’re looking for each other,
but there’s only one search: wandering
this world is wandering that, both inside one
transparent sky. In here
there is no dogma and no heresy.

The miracle of Jesus is himself, not what he said or did
about the future. Forget the future.
I’d worship someone who could do that.

On the way you may want to look back, or not,
but if you can say There’s nothing ahead,
there will be nothing there.

Stretch your arms and take hold the cloth of your clothes
with both hands. The cure for pain is in the pain.
Good and bad are mixed. If you don’t have both,
you don’t belong with us.

When one of us gets lost, is not here, he must be inside us.
There’s no place like that anywhere in the world.

“There’s Nothing Ahead”Rumi

Jessica Dofflemyer ~ all rights reserved

 

 

 

Present Offering

he still comes to visit
always bringing offerings
entering the front door
breathing in the scent of my stairwell
ascending
he looks around my living room
smiling at a friend
and then begins
the ritual unpacking

one by one
he places on the countertop
lilikoi (I’d said I liked them)
lemons (I’d said I needed them)
avocados
three ripe bananas
ginger root
turmeric
a handful of freshly picked allspice leaves (he has one in his shirt pocket)
and a glass jar filled
with his latest brew of noni juice

a natural exchange
I serve
salad with cucumber and pumpkin seeds
mist
the air with rose water
thread
a chunk of jasper for his neck

and when we say goodbye
I’m saying
thank you
practicing the present
pretending
(though it could be real)
that we may never meet again

Jessica Dofflemyer ~ all rights reserved

Fire and Water

Jessica Dofflemyer ~ all rights reserved

plum tea
freshly brewed coffee
and the last of the Beltane honey

swirling in the morning
I try holding
elusive steam
in sunlight