Why doesn’t the soul fly
when it hears the call?
A fish on the beach always
moves toward wave-sound
A falcon hears the drum
and brings the quarry home.
Why doesn’t every dervish
dance in the sun?
You’ve escaped the cage.
Your wings are stretched
out. Now, fly!
You’ve stayed in sheds and out-buildings
so long you think that’s where you live!
How many years, like children,
Do we have to collect sticks and pieces
of broken pottery and pretend they’re valuable?
Let’s leave childhood and go
to the banquet of free human beings.
Split open the cultural mold.
Put your head up out of the sack.
Hold this book in the air
with your right hand. Are you old enough
to know your right from your left?
God said to clarity,
Walk,
and to death,
Help them with discipline.
To the soul,
Move into the invisible.
Take what’s there,
and don’t sing
the pain anymore.
Call out that you are now the king.
You have been given both the answer
and an understanding of the question.
