A Splendid Time

Absolutely Green
By E.G

My friend M lost her sister over a month ago. I had never met her sister.  Today, I visited M, and had a chance to know her through magnificent stories.  It was a sheer imaginative journey into an unknown world!

Tears were falling like drops of rain from M's eyes, and I would look at her in silence.  

How we learn to live through one’s life experiences! How one’s fulfilled desires would fulfill our unfulfilled desires, our wistful yearnings! I was fascinated to listen to M's splendid memories of her  and learn to be courageous, passionate, audacious, fearless and unafraid of death. She battled cancer for over ten years.  Her smile, carefree laughter and philosophical views on life and death taught me enormously.

Then, my friend and I laughed as we celebrated her life with poetry, flowers, candles, coffee, tea and light launch. Such a gratifying day to meet a delightful soul! I felt as if I've known her for a long time. We read Rumi’s poems, specifically the poem "When I Die" which had been selected for her funeral. 

How death could be as stunning as the beauty of life!  

I remembered Cicero's saying: "The life given us by nature is short, but the memory of a life well spent is eternal." 

WHEN I DIE

By RUMI

When my coffin is being taken out,

You must never think

I am missing this world.

Don’t shed any tears, don’t lament or feel sorry

I am not falling into a monster’s abyss

When you see my corpse being carried,

Don’t cry for my leaving.

I am not leaving

I am arriving at eternal love.

When you leave me in the grave,

Don’t say goodbye

Remember a grave is only a curtain for the paradise behind.

You’ll only see me descending into a grave.

Now watch me rise

How can there be an end

When the sun sets or the moon goes down?

It looks like the end,

It looks like a sunset,

But in reality it is dawn

When the grave locks you up,

That is when your soul is freed.

Have you ever seen a seed fallen to earth, not rise with a new life?

Why should you doubt the rise of a seed named human?

Have you ever seen a bucket lowered into a well,

Coming back empty?

Why lament for a soul when it can come back

Like Joseph from the well.

When for the last time you close your mouth,

Your words and soul

Will belong to the world of no place no time.

RUMI, ghazal number 911, translated May 18, 1992, by Nader Khalili.


به روز مرگ چو تابوت من روان باشد
گمان مبر که مرا درد این جهان باشد
برای من مگری و مگو دریغ دریغ
به دوغ دیو درافتی دریغ آن باشد
جنازه‌ام چو ببینی مگو فراق فراق
مرا وصال و ملاقات آن زمان باشد
مرا به گور سپاری مگو وداع وداع
که گور پرده جمعیت جنان باشد
فروشدن چو بدیدی برآمدن بنگر
غروب شمس و قمر را چرا زبان باشد
تو را غروب نماید ولی شروق بود
لحد چو حبس نماید خلاص جان باشد
کدام دانه فرورفت در زمین که نرست
چرا به دانه انسانت این گمان باشد
کدام دلو فرورفت و پر برون نامد
ز چاه یوسف جان را چرا فغان باشد
دهان چو بستی از این سوی آن طرف بگشا
که های هوی تو در جو لامکان باشد