Where Are We, Fragile Vial // Still, Thy Fire

(Hi everyone! ☺️ A little preamble before the start of the poem: this is a little project I have been inspired to do, where each poem you read is a response to one of Rumi's poems, with the intention to tailor the flow stanza by stanza as a direct mirroring and honoring of the original structure of Rumi.

In the titles, I will first type the title of Rumi's poem, and follow it with the symbols "//" followed by the title of mine, so you know both what my structure means and which of Rumi's poems I am responding to! Another fun tidbit: my responsorial is meant to be read after each corresponding stanza of Rumi's. So, for example, when you read the first stanza of Rumi's "Where Are We, Fragile Vial", read the first stanza of "Still, Thy Fire" right afterwards, and repeat this moving forward.

Without further ado, here is the first Sonnet of this series: Responses to Rumi, A Collection!)

Where Are We, Fragile Vial // Still, Thy Fire

From whenst shadow leaves the body

Fair tree, rooted and strong,

taketh in what was lost.

/

The branches climb up and up,

reaching eagerly, not desperately,

caressing kiss of sun, not despairing,

for each ray is the warmth, the

breadth, and slice

of the entire universe.

/

Even if the man's eyes shade or blazen,

he cannot forget his lantern eternal,

as a woman passes and shows the way.

Yet if despair ires his storm,

Lantern lights turn lantern nights,

And the shades of deluded fate

haunt him.

Blood red stone pours from what be a

simple, bundle of cherry.

A blow of life's innocence locks away to a kiss of

desolace.

Beautimous rise and fall

of words, self-conjure daggers,

to self-flagellate to nothing.

A martyr to an audience of silence.

/

Still, unchain thy lion and roar!

Still, honor thy respite of mind's rites!

Still, nurture thy sick in sacred land,

nameth not one, single; nay,

but whom blooms trees a-groven

about them.

/

Where is there, and

there is here.

Worry not.

/

Whirls a-cleavèd,

strike old wounds true.

The red stone self-

prophetizing.

/

Wring and wrought your

instrument,

Sung from your inner tree,

lest thine seed perish

before thine illusion.

/

To find and stoke thine fire,

Kindle thine lantern with

no parade and prancing

cheer;

So be a quiet, burning deeply,

is a sight to behold.

Each breadth, your individual homage, to

sun's kiss,

thus be honorèd one's lost

mirrored well.