Rumi's Poem on Presence

Your grief for what you’ve lost holds a mirror up

To where you’ve been bravely working.

Expecting the worst, you look and instead,

Here’s the joyful face you’ve been wanting to see.

Your hand opens and closes

And opens and closes.

If it were always a first

Or always stretched open,

You would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small

Contracting and expanding—

The two as beautifully balanced and coordinated

As bird wings.

—A Poem by Rumi

Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī

This beautiful poem represents the balance of true presence to me. How between the past and the future — there is always the now.