A poem I wish I'd written myself

Sometimes obscure, often sardonic but always smattered with truths the work of the 13th Century poet Rumi never dates and seldom fails to move me:

Quatrains

The Friend comes into my body

Looking for the centre, unable

to find it, draws a blade,

strikes anywhere.

There is a light seed grain inside.

You fill it will yourself, or it dies.

I’m caught in this curling energy! Your hair!

Whoever’s calm and sensible is insane!

Do you think I know what I’m doing?

That for one breath or half-breath I belong to myself?

As much as a pen knows what it’s writing,

or the ball can guess where it’s going next.

We have a huge barrel of wine, but no cups.

That’s fine with us. Every morning

we glow and in the evening we glow again.

They say there’s no future for us. They’re right.

Which is fine with us.