Coffee with Rumi: Session #2

As a Wick Does

Photo by Prateek Gautam on Unsplash

Lines that Jump Out

Eat and drink the soul substance

as a wick does with the oil it soaks in. (Lines 7–8)

~Rumi, As a Wick Does

Reflection

The soul, by its very nature, is never satisfied. It wants to consume every part of our being. And yet, we have become experts at denying our souls the very substance it needs to survive and to thrive. We numb ourselves to it’s groaning with television that does not feel, music that does not feel, people that do not feel. No wonder we are dying from the inside out.

A Poem in Response

Don’t Turn Away by Noelle Joubert

Don’t avert your gaze from a sun that may burn,

he doesn’t only burn.

Don’t turn away from a child contorted in pain,

she is more than her suffering.

Don’t deafen your ear to the groaning soul,

if you feed her she will fly.