Thursday, February 12

Rumi's Poem on Aging

Why does a date-palm lose its leaves in autumn?
Why does every beautiful face grow in old age?
Wrinkled like the back of a libyan lizard?
Why does a full head of hair get bald?
Why is the tall, straight figure
That divided the ranks like a spear
Now bent alomost double?
Why is it that the
Lion strength weakens to nothing?
The wrestler who could hold anyone down
Is led out with two people supporting him,
Their shoulders under his arms?
God answers,
"They put on borrowed robes
and pretended they were theirs.
I take the beautiful clothes back,
so that you will learn the robe
of appearance is only a loan."
Your lamp was lit from another lamp.
All God wants is your gratitude for that.

For Rumi, it is not aging that is loss. On contrary, life itself is loss, a nostalgia for our Origin from which we find ourselves separated. For Jalal ad-Din, the"last of life" is that for which "the first was made," even includes death itself:

Inside the Great Mystery that is, we don't really own anything. What is this competition we feel then, before we go, one at a time, through the same gate.

1 comment:

Muhammd Naeem Sattar said...

Yes, what Rumi said is very Right. We don't really own anything. Even we don't own our most precious thing, our Will. Yes we don't own our will. As we cant select our parents, teachers, mother tongues, birth regions, prosperity by birth, child hood friends and unfortunately we even don't think to select our religion. These are all the major elements which form a personality, and ultimately a Will. So really, we don't own anything. For all those who think.