I was introduced to the poetry of Rumi (1207 to 1273 C.E.) by my dear friend, LaNelle Olson. When she travelled to Turkey, she returned with a small Persian carpet for my doll’s house and a small jar of dirt from the base of Rumi’s tomb.

Rumi’s poetry has continued to uplift and inspire me. I am grateful to contemporary American poet and translator Coleman Barks for providing the lens through which Rumi’s words can speak to me across the centuries. More recently, my friend and neighbor, poet and teacher Susan Jaret McKinstry, taught me about the poem, “Bird Wings,” to my attention. At her suggestion, I kept it on the refrigerator door and read it at least once a day until I had it memorized.

Bird Wings
 

Your grief for what you've lost lifts a 
mirror
up to where you are bravely working.

Expecting the worst, you look, and 
instead
here's the joyful face you've been
wanting to see.

Your hand opens and closes, and opens
and closes.
If it were always a fist or always
stretched open,
you would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small
contracting and expanding,
the two as beautifully balanced and
coordinated
as bird wings.

     RUMI  (translation by Coleman Barks)

I receive similar inspiration from the photographic artistry of my sister, Karla Schultz. Below is one of her recent soaring images.

Background on My Poem “Ice Feathers”:

Today’s poem is a small meditation on stillness and motion, ice and air, what is inside and what is outside.

Happy Reading! Happy Writing! Happy Meditating! LESLIE