Reaching Rumi’s Field

By Oula Miqbel

You pass through peaceful trenches.

Before running to the edge of the field.

Where the grass meets the skyline.

When the sun meets the beginning of the night.

Where the cool crisp air hangs.

 

Find me there.

 

Waiting beneath the coolness of dark shadows.

Where saffron sunsets fade into lavender skies.

Where the coolness of breath becomes visible.

On cold, clear nights.

 

The wily ambition of willful resilience,

Sinks into our skin, and we buzz.

Beaming with electromagnetic energy,

Fully charged–ready to charge.

Forging our own path.

With the wind on our backs willing our resilience.

 

Slipping into past selves driven by our youthful indignation.

The optimism of a pessimist on course, towards positive thinking drives our imagination.

We fall in prostration begging to stay like this.

Where the clearness of time stands still.

 

But we are propelled forward,

Encumbered in blankets of smoke.

Deep breath in,

Eyes fixed forward,

Under the haze of darkened days,

Beneath a cloak of smoke,

Thrust upon a future we failed to predict.

 

If we could go back,

Could we fix this?

Give the sun back her fiery gaze,

And graze where the stars touch down,

Beneath Jupiter’s lantern.

 

Little gust of wind,

Don’t blow…

The tiny sparks,

Forged from minor embers,

That burn into major flames.

Gray smoke billowing in the west,

Covering the eastern sea.

 

Deep breath in,

Running towards the end of the sunset,

With no time left,

Catching ashes in our hands,

Like snowflakes in December.

 

Rain clouds drip,

Even Mother Nature weeps for us.

But her tears turned bitter,

When Cratered surfaces erupted,

And we fell between hemlock groves,

Amongst the red and yellow picotee begonias,

Like bursts of sunset beneath the oak tree gloom,

And we wished to be saved from the ruination of man-made trauma.

 

But alas, we were cursed.

Like each sharp bridled pain cast in the east,

We flew west.

And on our journey, we grew,

Like taxed winds, the enormity of our emotion,

Let us sail through.

 

And we became weightless.

We were warriors and fiends wrapped in the breeze, swaying with no direction,

Bound by seconds until we could be free.

 

Oula Miqbel is a teacher based in California. She holds a master’s degree in literature and is currently pursuing a second M.A. in Education.