Rumi and Rumination

TO BROOD is to wander through a grove

where one sheep strays

and a hundred wolves follow.

Why did I make brooding my vocation

when awe was an option?

Thought spinner,

mull the wine of wonder.

— Rumi (Sept. 30, 1207-Dec. 17, 1273)

I Am a Tree

I eat the sun, I drink the light.

I am a conjurer. My sugar is self-sacrifice.

I cut my arm to feed my leg.

I am waiting for nothing, needing for nothing. I am an army, I am the mother of them all,

I can regenerate.

I clone a nation from my foot.

I am a country of one.

I am a family; I am a household.

I have skin and I can bruise and I can bleed, and I can cry. I make my friends. We are connected.

We are inseparable. We grow intertwined.

We share the sky, we are agreed.

I can give, and I can care for.

I’ve got other mouths to feed.

They need me.

I am a tree. I know secrets that you will never know. I channel lighting. I see in color.

I make the air you need to grow.

I’m not a man, I’m not a woman. Surprisingly I’m both.

And when I know that I must die

I put the best of me back into the ground. I stretch for miles and miles and miles. And let’s not forget my leaves:

Clouds of green.

— Majel Connery