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Tabish Khair

Rumi and the Reed

Rumi and the Reed

Rumi and the Reed

Listen to the song of the reed flute:
              It sings of separation.
Torn from the leaf-layered, wind-voiced
               Banks of the pond,
It is joined to sorrow and joy
               By a slender sound.
Who, asked Rumi, can understand
               The reed’s longing to return?
                                     Let its raw lips rest then;
                                     Let all words be brief then.

And I, O Believers, cried Rumi
               (Having lost the man he loved),
I who am not of the East
               Nor of the West, un-Christian,
Not Muslim or Jew, neither
               Born of Adam nor Eve,
What can I love but the world itself,
              What can I kiss but flesh?
                                     Let  my raw lips rest then;
                                    Let all words be brief.
Tabish Khair

Tabish Khair

(India, 1966)

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Rumi and the Reed

Listen to the song of the reed flute:
              It sings of separation.
Torn from the leaf-layered, wind-voiced
               Banks of the pond,
It is joined to sorrow and joy
               By a slender sound.
Who, asked Rumi, can understand
               The reed’s longing to return?
                                     Let its raw lips rest then;
                                     Let all words be brief then.

And I, O Believers, cried Rumi
               (Having lost the man he loved),
I who am not of the East
               Nor of the West, un-Christian,
Not Muslim or Jew, neither
               Born of Adam nor Eve,
What can I love but the world itself,
              What can I kiss but flesh?
                                     Let  my raw lips rest then;
                                    Let all words be brief.

Rumi and the Reed

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