I'm on the inside
of the outside
with you, warm,
stretched out
across my chest,
your head resting
on my shoulder;
your whiskers
against my chin;
your purring
a soft machine
deep down
in existence

while The Big Red Book of Rumi
makes this morning complete;
the poet's words from the 13th century
for ever fresh, contemporary

as I fend off the mosquitos
that found the cracks
in the balcony door

Even I, right here, right now,
stepping out of each passing moment
with diligence,
stepping into each emerging
with a light gait,
never reach the contemporaneity
of Jalal al-din (Balkhi) Rumi,
whose soaring lightness
smiles
across the altitude of my senses,
like a cool gust of wind
across the herbary,
lifting the invigorating fragrances
out of nature's state of high summer's bliss
through the immediacy of this life