In Praise of Coleman Barks, Rumi, and My Friend John Despite and Because: Everyday Magic, Day 1,133

Since the astonishing Coleman Barks died Feb. 23rd, I've been trying to write about this premier translator of Rumi, the ever-relevant 13th century Sufi mystic poet Coleman brought us. I especially want to tell the story of how I met Coleman when he was helping, in extraordinary fashion, my friend John Willison.

But I stopped myself from writing this celebration of poets and poetry because of all the stuff happening in our world lately. ICE showed up in my town to disappear some of our people, which in turn propelled many of us to come together and learn how to respond. Then the war in the Middle Wast started, and all manner of hell has been and is breaking out. In such times, it's hard to know how to live, carrying on with relatively normal tasks, stresses, and delights, let alone write about poetry.

I should know better: such times are exactly when we need to turn to poetry. This quote from the late poet Andrea Gibson brought me home: "Anyone who thinks poetry is frivolous has never needed someone to tell them something unspeakably hard." Gibson said this in reference to the moment her wife, write Meg Falley, had to tell her that her cancer was incurable.

John, who was a contemporary embodiment of Rumi, knows what that moment is like. I first met him as a student in my Turning Point writing workshops for people living with serious illness shortly after his cancer went into remission. In the years that followed, I had the honor of watching him fall in love with poetry and create his own mind-blowing, heart-opening poems. Then the cancer came irrevocably back, a slow-moving train that would not be deterred.

John at the Power of Words conference, 2014, photo by Stephen Locke

Throughout it all, John found sustenance in the poetry of the Sufi mystic Rumi (full name: Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, 1207-1273), which was readily available to us thanks to Coleman's translations. Coleman, introduced to Rumi by poet Robert Bly, published over a dozen collections of Rumi's poetry -- often collaborating with Persian scholar John Moyne -- that became some of the best-selling poetry books of his and our time. I have rarely met anyone with even the slightest interest in poetry who has not heard of Rumi (or Mary Oliver, but that's another story).

I drew heavily (and still do) on Rumi in Turning Point workshops, often using his poems as a diving board for people to leap off of into their own writing, such as one of Rumi's most quoted poems about how to live in fearful times:

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty

and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study

and begin reading. Take down the dulcimer.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.

There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

~ Rumi

John took to it as a fish to water or like one Rumi to another, writing up a big body of poems that, like Rumi's, could transcend time and culture.

So in 2013, when Coleman came to Kansas City to perform Rumi poetry at Unity on the Plaza, John's wife, Pauline, reached out. Coleman invited John to the stage, and John read this poem to us, first without and then with musical accompaniment provided by Allaudin Ottinger on percussion, Nathaniel Caetanya Bottorff on strings, and a marvelous clarinetist.

I Have My Home in Two Worlds

This one:

With all its wild running,

Stuffing my pockets full of pleasure.

A smile the size of a candy shop!

I open my closet,

My whole life pours out

In excessive sweetness.

Even my suffering has taken a shine.

Running my fingers over my scars,

What were once indignities

Are now a flutter in the heart…

I bashfully flirt with every beauty.

The blushing maple, there

That brushstroke of moon.

Her hand on my chest,

Light as air,

And just as needed.

It’s all an enchantment.

I am aware of the windows being shut at the back of the house,

The doors, propped open, closing.

But this is not to be a constraint, a prison for beggars.

Not a house of sorrows.

Yes, everything will tremble.

All will fall.

This container will topple off the shelf and shatter,

Spilling into an infinite field,

Where this greeting awaits:

Hello, darling. Welcome home.

~ John Willison

That Coleman understood and gave John this grace stays with me as evidence of what poetry can do, especially when it comes to what we carry that's unspeakably hard. Within three years, John would be gone, but this poem remains (as well as a whole collection of John's poetry I helped him publish, working with him within weeks of his death). Coleman's translations and original poetry also remain, as does Rumi's poetry.

Rumi knew something of poetry as a source of solace, guidance, and courage. His family was forced, by the quickly advancing Mongol army, from their home to live in different cities in Iran, Baghdad, Damascus, and to eventually settle in Konya (in Turkey). Born to Persian parents, Rumi's life reflected some of the terrifying and pressured times of life in the Middle East, painfully relevant to now.

I close with a Rumi poem (translated by Coleman) that speaks of two worlds, perhaps life and death or, by extension, the creative power of poetry and its opposite. All three of these men -- Coleman, Rumi, and John -- remind me: Don't go back to sleep.

For years, copying other people, I tried to know myself.

From within, I couldn’t decide what to do.

Unable to see, I heard my name being called.

Then I walked outside.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don’t go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.

Don’t go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill

where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

Don’t go back to sleep.