on the occasion of change.

water falls, becomes a river, then the sky again.

that is the true nature of embrace.

of a Sufi poet a few hundred years ago,

          Unable to perceive the shape of You…
          I find You all around me.

          Your presence fills my eyes with Your love…

          It humbles my heart…
          For You are everywhere.

look into the face of everywhere,
realize that also means every when.

no lie, the light of a star continues
its far flight, visible to patient eyes,

patient hearts.

I have listened to you and hear your
language with her yet resides in present time.

honor that voice.

if life is a question gifted us
then the answer to pain is love.
 
 
 

footnotes:

this letter, this poem, is real.   it is not the sort of thing I’d commonly write.   however.   a friend is parted from a lifelong companion now.   what to say?   this is my answer here.   not to change anything more than is already changed, but how to hold and embrace that change.

the poem partially quoted above is an excerpt from an 11th/12th century Persian Sufi poet, Hakim Sanai.

this quote is referenced from the ending of Guillermo del Toro’s movie masterwork, The Shape of Water.

simply said, it is the clearest expression of love I have ever heard.   being either hand of this poetic stance would be a life most dear and true.  I glimpse, even if I don’t yet live there myself.