Listen to the reed breathing
Fervent love and intense pain
Since it was wrenched from its
marshy bed...
Kindled by the spark of love
I am drunk with love's own wine
If you wish to know what lovers
suffer
Listen to the reed.
For the 13th century Persian poet Jalal al-din Rumi, the reed was a metaphor for man. Rumi was a follower of the ancient principles of Sufism, a mystical movement that is to Islam roughly what Hasidism is to Judaism. He believed that the soul and God are one and the same. The world, he taught the faithful, is but a tomb, temporarily...
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