Only Breath

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu,
Buddhist, sufi or zen. Not any religion

or cultural system. I am not from the East
or the West, not out of the ocean or up

from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not
composed of elements at all. I do not exist,

am not an entity in this world or the next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve or any

origin story. My place is placeless, a trace
of the traceless. Neither body or soul.

I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one and that one call to and know,

first, last, outer, inner, only that
breath breathing human being.

~

There is a way between voice and presence
where information flows.

In disciplined silence it opens.
With wandering talk it closes.

Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273) was a 13th-century Persian poet, Islamic scholar, theologian, and Sufi mystic originally from Balkh (in present-day Afghanistan).