Sing loud!

Tara C. Trapani

 

For some of us, huddled under heavy blankets of snow, isolated from others, the winter seems particularly deep and thick this year. In these times, poems—like the following excerpt from the longer poem One Note—are like a flame we tend deep in our burrows to stay warm until the time comes to emerge. If you can find the fortitude to sing loud now, go! Don’t hide your passion and your light. If you’re struggling to find the strength of your voice, just be content to tend the spark for now. Spring will return and your song will flow again. 

 

 

God picks up the reed-flute world and blows.

Each note is a need coming through one of us,

a passion, a longing-pain.

Remember the lips

where the wind-breath originated,

and let your note be clear.

Don’t try to end it.

Be your note.

I’ll show you how it’s enough.

 

Go up on the roof at night

in this city of the soul.

 

Let everyone climb on their roofs

and sing their notes!

 

Sing loud!

 

~Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī

 

Messages to Myself (text by W. Whitman and Rumi): II.
Rumi, “God picks up the reed-flute world and blows”

Performed by Yale Schola Cantorum, Conductor: Simon Carrington, Composer: Christopher Theofanidis