My hands clasped in knotted prayer,
I slipped away, beyond aware
but you slipped a string around my finger
and tugged it toward your hidden turbe.
So I tugged back in this gentle play
of cat and mouse,
of Rumi and his parindey.
You were hiding in the sun of answers,
creeping toward my shadows
you sprung upon me Jelal-u’din
while my guard was down
sitting dreaming in your flowered meadow.
There in Mevlana’s turbesi this morning
in my fifth hour of stillness,
I lingered in the twilight of complete submission
and felt a vine craw into my heart
shortening my breath with erratic rhythms.
I was gently pulled from this precipice
by a dervish quietly exclaiming,
“the Shaikh and his khalifa arrived”
it was then I knew my bayat had begun
long before he’d seen my eyes.
I took hand with the teacher …
twice today.
Now – how can we ever be apart?
in the evening he placed his hand upon my head
but in the morning he’d already taken me by the heart.
