This weekend, 60 people gathered to celebrate the art of love – as expressed in the gentle and sweet music of Enid Ames, modern musician and composer of southern New Hampshire, and in the words of Jelalludin Rumi, b 1207 in what was then the eastern margin of the Persian Empire, and what is now the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan.

Enid's sets were interspersed with a spoken verse; asked to read a favorite, I opened Coleman Barks Essential Rumi to Chapter 8: Being a Lover ~ The Sunrise Ruby, and found a poem I had not read before.

Music Master 

You that love lovers,
this is your home. Welcome!

In the midst of making form,
love made this form that melts form:
Love was the door
and soul the vestibule.

Watch the dust grains moving
in the light near the window.

Their dance is our dance.

We rarely hear the inward music
be we dance to it nonetheless

directed by the one who teaches us
the pure joy of the sun
our music master.

~

When I am with you, we stay up all night.
When you're not here, I can't go to sleep.

Praise God for these two insomnias!
and the difference between them.

~

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.

~

We are the mirror, and the face in it.
We are tasting the taste this minute
of eternity. We are pain
and what cures pain, both.
We are the sweet, cold water
and the jar that pours it.

~

I want to hold you close like a lute
so together we can cry out loving.

You would rather throw stones at a mirror?
I am your mirror, and here are the stones.