Friday, March 29, 2024
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Poetry for Sunday: Rumi, This Great Love

Rumi, "This Great Love"
Rumi, “This Great Love”
I am so small I can barely be seen.
 How can this great love be inside me?
 Look at your eyes. They are small,
but they see enormous things.
~Rumi
Really, how can such great love be inside such a small thing as a tiny kitten? And yet the potential for a lifetime of love is there inside every kitten and every animal that shares its life with humans.

And it is for each of us as well, small and insignificant as we may seem sometimes, that a love larger than ourselves can be held in our hearts, and our small and fragile eyes, both our physical eyes and our inner intuitive eyes, can see enormous things around us, and our hearts are bigger than we know.

. . . . . . .

 I listened to a program where I heard this poem by Rumi and remembered how it touched me years before but could not remember the text exactly. I ended up lying across my bed with books of Rumi’s poems and other poetry anthologies all around me pulled from the bookshelf in the corner. My cats all ran up the steps with me and leaped on the bed, anticipating, when I headed for that bookshelf, knowing exactly where my copy of The Essential Rumi could be found, savoring the idea of getting lost in the verses on my way to this one. As I read, all the cats wandered around me and on me, purring, approving, then happily settling down in a purring line next to me, curling in their quotes and commas of relaxation as I flipped through the pages of books.

I found the poem and remembered looking at photos from earlier times, and a photo of a black kitten so tiny she still had her baby blue eyes looking at me full of love and trust, and in that circular way that Rumi leads me I knew that I was intended to put the two thoughts together. We are always searching for the beloved. Sometimes the beloved comes in the form of a kitten.

Rumi’s poems don’t really have names, but translators and anthologists have given them names; this poem is sometimes called This Great Love.

About Rumi

You may see “Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī” or “Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rumi” or “Jelaluddin Rumi” or hear him referred to as “the mystic poet”, but though his writing seems to be modern free verse, the author was a 13th-century Persian poet, jurist and theologian, living from 1207 to 1273, famous even in his own time for his writing, his decisions, and his practice and teaching as a Sufi mystic. The poems are written in Persian but their words transcend time and place and are read by people all over the world. The interpreter with whom I am most familiar is Coleman Barks, and I love to listen to him read what he’s found in Rumi’s writings in his soft Georgia accent. I’d reference a site somewhere on the internet but I don’t have one I prefer. Just search Rumi and you’ll find plenty.


Read poems inspired by my cats and by observing my backyard wildlife habitat, and listen to those I’ve recorded, and read about my poetry.

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© 2022 | www.TheCreativeCat.net | Published by Bernadette E. Kazmarski

Weekly schedule of features:

Sunday: Essays, Pet Loss, Poetry, The Artist’s Life

Monday: Adoptable Cats, TNR & Shelters

Tuesday: Rescue Stories

Wednesday: Commissioned Portrait or Featured Artwork

Thursday: New Merchandise

Friday: Book Review, Health and Welfare, Advocacy

Saturday: Your Backyard Wildlife Habitat, Living Green With Pets, Creating With Cats

And sometimes, I just throw my hands in the air and have fun!

 
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© 2016 | www.TheCreativeCat.net | Published by Bernadette E. Kazmarski
Weekly schedule of features:
Sunday: Essays, Pet Loss, Poetry, The Artist’s Life
Monday: Adoptable Cats, TNR & Shelters
Tuesday: Rescue Stories
Wednesday: Commissioned Portrait or Featured Artwork
Thursday: New Merchandise
Friday: Book Review, Health and Welfare, Advocacy
Saturday: Your Backyard Wildlife Habitat, Living Green With Pets, Creating With Cats
And sometimes, I just throw my hands in the air and have fun!
PORTRAITS OF ANIMALS WEBSITE
FACEBOOK | TWITTER | LINKEDIN | PINTEREST | TUMBLR | STUMBLEUPON | GOOGLE+ | EMAIL

HOME

Bernadette

From health and welfare to rescue and adoption stories, advocacy and art, factual articles and fictional stories, "The Creative Cat" offers both visual and verbal education and entertainment about cats for people who love cats, pets and animals of all species.

2 thoughts on “Poetry for Sunday: Rumi, This Great Love

  • What an appropriate poem.
    I am not familiar with Rumi but I am watching a documentary on Netflix “Sufi Soul”.
    Not surprising that his poems transcend time.These are interesting people.
    Nancy and the kitties

    Reply
    • Nancy, Rumi is amazing, for me his words have found depth as I have changed, but they are timeless. Sufism has always seemed like one of the purest faiths.

      Reply

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