I received this last night and thought to pass it on.
Trying to seed some poetry amid the Covid!
……………………………………….
Dear Friends,
We’re starting a collective, constructive, and hopefully uplifting exchange. It's a one-time thing and we hope you will participate. We have picked those we think would be willing and make it fun.
Please send a poem to the person whose name is in position 1 below (even if you don't know them), with the email subject Poem Exchange.
It should be a favorite text/verse/meditation that has affected you in difficult times. Or not. Don't agonize over it. If you'd like to send a poem in your own language and provide a translation, please do so!
After you've sent the short poem/verse/quote/etc. to the person in position 1, and only that person, copy this letter into a new email.
Move the second name to position 1, and put your name in position 2. Only the name you move up and your name should show in the new email. Send it to 20ish friends BCC (blind copy).
Seldom does anyone drop out because we all need new pleasures. The turnaround is fast, as there are only two names on the list, and you only have to do it once.
Why not give it a try or do something like it—-to share beauty and light in these dark times?
Below, is the poem that I shared:
Zero Circle
Be helpless, dumbfounded,
Unable to say yes or no.
Then a stretcher will come from grace
to gather us up.
We are too dull-eyed to see that beauty.
If we say we can, we’re lying.
If we say No, we don’t see it,
That No will behead us
And shut tight our window onto spirit.
So let us rather not be sure of anything,
Beside ourselves, and only that, so
Miraculous beings come running to help.
Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute,
We shall be saying finally,
With tremendous eloquence, Lead us.
When we have totally surrendered to that beauty,
We shall be a mighty kindness.
—Rumi
(Photo by a friend of mine, Omar Hikal)
Yahia Lababidi
https://www.amazon.com/Yahia-Lababidi/e/B0042SRQWG?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_6&qid=1566682271&sr=8-6
