There are many Rumi poems I don’t get, but this is one I’d like to think that I do.

I take great comfort in this poem. I take great comfort that there is an exchanging flow. On my weaker days, I obsess of what people think of me. On my weaker days, I take great comfort in this poem’s advice of the relative non-importance of people’s opinions. On my stronger days, this poem inspires me to start a huge, foolish project.

There are quite a few people in the world who have not taken the second step of desire. There are quite a few people in the world who have waited a long time for the world to begin.  It is my resolve to not be one of them.

These spiritual window-shoppers,
who idly ask, ‘How much is that?’
‘Oh, I’m just looking.’
They handle a hundred items and put them down,
shadows with no capital.

What is spent is love and two eyes wet with weeping.
But these walk into a shop,
and their whole lives pass suddenly in that moment,
in that shop.

Where did you go? “Nowhere.”
What did you have to eat? “Nothing much.”
Even if you don’t know what you want,
buy something, to be part of the exchanging flow.

Start a huge, foolish project,
like Noah.
It makes absolutely no difference
what people think of you.

This translation of this poem can be found in many places, but it first appeared in the book “Rumi: We Are Three”

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