Michael Shepherd (8.4.1929 / Marton, Lancashire)

Rumi wrote much about silence.
Does that seem strange?

Poets live with silence:
the silence before the poem;
the silence whence the poem comes; .

the silence in between the words, as you
drink the words, watch them glide through your mind,
feel them slide down your throat
towards your heart;

the silence which you share with the poet
when the poem ends, sitting side by side,
feeling one another being one heart;

the silence after the poem,
when you are a different person
from the person who started reading the poem,
think differently, move differently,
act differently; know Rumi a little better
as a friend; know yourself a little more
as a friend.

Rumi was asked, why do you
talk, talk, talk, so much
about silence?

He said, the radiant one inside me
has said nothing.

And that’s the silence which we listen to
and hear in Rumi’s heart,
here, sitting in the cool shade
which the scent of roses seems to love,
while the fountain gently plays like a poet
with sound and silence.