A Poem for Our Time: Father Reason

Rumi, possibility one of the greatest poet's in human history? This feels so appropriate for the world we live in right now.

FATHER REASON

The universe is a form of divine law,

Your reasonable father.

When you feel ungrateful to him,

the shapes of the world seem mean and ugly.

Make peace with that father, the elegant patterning,

and every experience will fill with immediacy.

Because I love this, I am never bored.

Beauty constantly wells up, a noise of spring water

in my ear and my inner being.

Tree limbs rise and fall like ecstatic arms

of those who have submitted to the mystical life.

Leaf sounds talk together like poets

making fresh metaphors. The green felt cover slips,

and we get a flash of the mirror underneath.

Think how it will be when the whole thing

is pulled away! I tell only one one-thousandth

of what I see, because there is so much doubt everywhere.

The conventional opinion of poetry is,

it shows great optimism for the future.

But Father Reason says,

No need to announce the future!

This now is it. This. Your deepest need and desire

is satisfied by the moment's energy

here in your hand.