“the price of kissing is your life”
Tonight I walk on stage as that daemon of passion,Jalalu'ddin Rumi! I must go out and find myself a wooly beard … how hard can that be? It is Halloween week, after all. I asked my South African friend Sarah if she was going to dress up as anything. Sarah, who has lived in Michigan since the age of 16, didn't see the point.
"Back home we celebrate Guy Fawkes Day."
"You do? Why on earth for?"
"At one time we were under English Crown."
"Good god, you were under a lot of people … plus, it's a holiday about someone trying to blow up the British Houses of Parliament … and failed! What does that have to do with South Africa?"
"We like to celebrate British debacles."
Still, Dead Poets … free Halloween treats … great conversation … Rumi! The flyer I picked up reads: "You can expect to see old favorites like Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Dylan Thomas. . . . 'newer voices' like Jane Kenyon and Rumi. . . and poets unknown to American audiences, like Rosalia de Castro." I am not sure who doesn't know Rosalia de Castro, but it makes interesting press. Here is the Rumi poem I though I'd read tonight but decided against. Not because it isn't lovely, but because I only get to read 3 poems and there are so many to choose from:
The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.
Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along.