Reflection

Everything's reflective.

The sun,
admiring itself in the open sea.

The sky-kissed surfaces of the shiny black rocks.

My boyfriend's camera lens.

Each of us to each other
and others to us.


We should remember this whenever we start to compare.

Only Breath

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu
Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion

or cultural system. I am not from the East
or the West, not out of the ocean or up

from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not
composed of elements at all. I do not exist,

am not an entity in this world or in the next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve or any

origin story. My place is placeless, a trace
of the traceless. Neither body or soul.

I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one and that one call to and know,

first, last, outer, inner, only that
breath breathing human being.

~Jelaluddin Rumi
From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks