Mystic Monday # 1 :: Unmarked Boxes

Mystic Monday ~ An alternate to Manic Monday.

Unmarked Boxes

by Jalal al-din Rumi

translated by Coleman Barks

Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round
in another form. The child weaned from mother's milk
now drinks wine and honey mixed.

God's joy moves from unmarked box to unmarked box,
from cell to cell. As rainwater, down into flower bed.
As roses, up from ground.
Now it looks like a plate of rice and fish,
now a cliff covered with vines,
now a horse being saddled.
It hides within these,
till one day it cracks them open.

Part of the self leaves the body when we sleep
and changes shape. You might say, "Last night
I was a cypress tree, a small bed of tulips,
a field of grapevines." Then the phantasm goes away.
You're back in the room.
I don't want to make any one fearful.
Hear what's behind what I say.

Tatatumtum tatum tatadum.
There's the light gold of wheat in the sun
and the gold of bread made from that wheat.
I have neither. I'm only talking about them,

as a town in the desert looks up
at stars on a clear night.

How I love this poem, and the poet who wrote those words. This poem tells me that nothing really ever dies, but only changes form. One can only count on change, as a constant in life. And, in the eyes of God, we have sameness, no distinctions ~ when we return to him, the human construct of separateness melts, just the same as a water droplet that falls into a vast ocean.

The graces of God which we receive, we cannot control. The divine works, unseen, in unmarked places, and at unmarked times. He moves from unmarked box, to unmarked box. And, as for loss ~ those dear ones that lose physical form, whose matter we can no longer see, touch, smell, hear ~ remember, forms only change; they do not die. Perhaps, then, we might conjure up the image of a star exploding, shedding off layers and layers and seeding many new stars all around. Death does not exist, really. And, life cultivates life.