HOW WORDS BECAME

On Rumi’s death date

my body was visited by a global plague

that shook me into breathlessness

until words let go of my hands

and made meaning for themselves

A dream of winds stirred me awake

and I found myself prostrated over a poem

as three gusts of wind circled the cottage

I lay restless in

When I awoke, only stillness

and a moon that danced over an outburst of clouds

washed the cottage in lunar baptismal

Inside, I was busy becoming lost

to the trickster

of our time

who slowly took my breath away

so my words could become clearer