Bend, tend, disappear (poem by Rumi, photos by Timm)

This is how you change
when you go to the orchard
where the heart opens.

You become
fragrance and the light
that burning oil gives off,

long strands of grieving hair, lion
and at the same time, gazelle.

You're walking alone without feet,
as river water does.

A taste of wine that is bitter and sweet,
seen and unseen, neither wet nor dry,
like Jesus reaching to touch.

A new road appears without desirous imagining,
inside God's breath:



empty, where you quit saying
the name and there's no distance,
no calling dove-coo.

A window, a wild rose at the field's edge,
you'll be me,
but don't feel proud or happy.

Bend like the limb of a peach tree.
Tend those who need help.
Disappear 3 days with the moon.

Don't pray to be healed, or look for evidence
of "some other world":



You are the soul
and medicine for what wounds the soul.

-- "Bend, Tend, Disappear," by Rumi

transl. Coleman Barks

photos by Timm O'Cobhthaigh