Rumi

Rumi

Here is a man who me Jesus.  

“Climb to the Execution Place”

Grief settles thick in the throat
and lungs: thousands of sorrows

being suffered, clouds of cruelty,
all somehow from love.  Wail and be

thirsty for your own blood.  Climb
up to the execution place.  It is time.

The Nile flows red: the Nile flows pure.  
Dry wood and Aloe wood are

the same until fire touches.  A
Warrior and a mean coward stand here.

similar until arrows rain.  Warriors
love battle,  A subtle lion with

strategy gets the prey to run toward
him, saying “kill me again.”  Dead

eyes look into living eyes.  Don’t try
to figure this out.  Love’s work

looks absurd, but trying to find a meaning
will hide it more.  Silence.

I don’t understand all of that, and Rumi’s poem was written for a prior Sufi who was crucified by Islam and not for Jesus.  But there’s no denying that Jesus is in this poem, and that Rumi met the Spirit writing it.

Plus, this poem kicks the living bejesus out of anything in the Koran.