“I have a thirsty fish in me
That can never find enough
Of what it is thirsty for
Show me the way to the ocean…” Rumi, Divan: 1823
My Share of Incompleteness
I press my guitar tight
Against the bruise in the center of my chest
The footprint of longing.
The incompleteness of the moment
-the slender string in the dark-
Pulls with the power of a magnetic field
As my fingers move on the fingerboard
In search of drifting songs
Ebbs and flows
Cool ocean currents
To calm the thirsty fish inside.
The summer night is alive
With a million crickets singing outside my window
In the morning
I get to the park early
Running and breathing in
Every blade of grass
Until the little silvery cup in me
Is filled with a rare dancing green
Which I would call
“The essence of all summery gardens”
If it had to be called something!
Puzzled, charmed, mesmerized
With the longing, the incompleteness
That remains from the night before
That radiates from the center of my chest
I run and look for the ocean
in bright sunshine
“I can die with the joy of this longing”
I think as I drink the cool morning mist
“Or live two hundred years!”
Later,
In the kitchen
I listen to a drummer working wonders on the “daf”
And chop onions for a Persian dish
Moving to the rhythm of the “daf”
I smile at the finely chopped little sound bits
That dance with me on the kitchen floor
“A completed sentence has said
Everything it has to say.”
I catch myself thinking
“The summer night is alive
Until the crickets long for singing.”
“If turning in circles stops
Whirling will end!”
I laugh out loud
Intrigued suddenly
With the charming incompleteness of the universe
Not chopping onions anymore
My hands search on my chest
For my share of incompleteness
Onion bits are whirling in the pot
I am dancing bare feet on the kitchen floor
The daf plays loud in my chest
Cool playful ocean waves
Clime up my toes and reach my ankles
Scattering pebbles on the floor I cleaned the night before.
September 18, 2000, St. Louis