Granite and Wineglass
by Rumi
You are granite.
I am an empty wineglass.
You know what happens when we touch!
You laugh like the sun coming up laughs
at a star that disappears into it.
Love opens my chest, and thought
returns to its confines.
Patient and rational considerations leave.
Only passion stays, whimpering and feverish.
Some men fall down in the road like dregs thrown out.
Then, totally reckless, the next morning
they gallop out with new purposes. Love
is the reality, and poetry is the drum
that calls us to that. Don’t keep complaining
about loneliness! Let the fear-language of that theme
crack open and float away. Let the priest come down
from his tower, and not go back up!
You can find this poem in The Essential Rumi.
Life of Kim 