! ! Sufi Poem by Michael Shepherd

A broken reed. No longer
its feet in earth, its stalk in water;
what will become of it?

Taken by grace; cut; shaped
into new name, new form;
breathed into it, the breath of life;

the breath, heard by a song
unmanifest, that waits to be born
from cause to mind to sound:

how can this sound be described,
the joy of broken reed now flute?

Now the reed can sing; speaks
of how it cried its loss;
yearned to find itself again;
knowing in its heart
that wholeness waits, somewhere, for ever;

now it sings for joy, so purely that
no ears, no heart, can resist its call;
nevermore to part the reed, the flute, the song.