Rumi wrote much about silence. <br />Does that seem strange? <br /> <br />Poets live with silence: <br />the silence before the poem; <br />the silence whence the poem comes; . <br /> <br />the silence in between the words, as you <br />drink the words, watch them glide through your mind, <br />feel them slide down your throat <br />towards your heart; <br /> <br />the silence which you share with the poet <br />when the poem ends, sitting side by side, <br />feeling one another being one heart; <br /> <br />the silence after the poem, <br />when you are a different person <br />from the person who started reading the poem, <br />think differently, move differently, <br />act differently; know Rumi a little better <br />as a friend; know yourself a little more <br />as a friend. <br /> <br />Rumi was asked, why do you <br />talk, talk, talk, so much <br />about silence? <br /> <br />He said, the radiant one inside me <br />has said nothing. <br /> <br />And that’s the silence which we listen to <br />and hear in Rumi’s heart, <br />here, sitting in the cool shade <br />which the scent of roses seems to love, <br />while the fountain gently plays like a poet <br />with sound and silence.<br /><br />Michael Shepherd<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/rumi-s-silence/
