“Go Behind The Screen” (Rumi)

Suddenly I fall from the pavilion into a place

where I can see the world’s ugliness and fake beauty, rouge on a diseased face, a thorn sunk in a kidney

the blind crone holding out a winner’s wreath, her black ribbons loose, eyes darkened with purple.

Do not look at her anklets. Look at her legs.

The puppet show is charming, but go behind the screen and see who runs it. Wash your hands and face of all this.

Someone who tries for these prizes

burns up quickly like wood chips.

There is a friend who will help you, the one who turned the wheel

and brought us out of non-existence, the sweet-breathing one.

These words are ways of just adding up our breaths. It is better to be silent inside the friend’s breathing.