Meadow

Come out to Rumi's meadow, beyond right and
wrong thinking, where we loaf among wild poppies,
spilling wine as they do, letting our colors run,
carelesss as our mothers were about the moon;

where old Basho sits and listens on a mossy stone,
while dour-eyed Rilke gives advice to young poets
and King David plays his sad sweet lyre.
Isn’t it time for you to come home and be lost?

There is no war in this meadow.
Give up your argument: that was yesterday.
Come and be reminded of your privilege.
The privilege to exist an instant on this earth.

The privilege to find a womb here
and get bathed in the ocean of microbes.
The privilege to be brown, to be green.
The privilege to wear a human face;

to stand or repose, to sit or walk slowly, going
nowhere but your footsteps, amazed how a taste
of milk, or the fragrance of a summer evening rose
can liberate your flesh from the edges of the mind.

Above all, the privilege to receive this breath,
and welcome her as a pilgrim who journeys
across vast night, raveling up the galaxies
with all their threaded tears, to offer herself

upon your alter of gristle and bone.
You carry songs in your blood.
You carry all, and the future of all.
I’ve told you this before, my friend:

You are the ancient fire who falls from stars
that died so long ago, so far away, their light
is only now arriving in your body. Yet, and yet,
you cannot be more than one moment old.