Rumi
Rumi seems to be everywhere these days and has been for a while. This past weekend I was at the wedding of Micah Vote, the son of a family friend, and a Rumi poem served as the foundation of the ceremony. Here it is:
May these vows and this marriage be blessed.
May it be sweet milk,
this marriage like wine and halvah.
May this marriage offer fruit and shade
like the date palm.
May this marriage be full of laughter,
our every day a day in paradise.
May this marriage be a sign of compassion,
a seal of happiness here and hereafter.
May this marriage have a fair face and a good name,
an omen as welcomes the moon in a clear blue sky.
I am out of words to describe
how spirit mingles in this marriage.
The poem has been put to music by Eric Whitacre, and it was sung by Micah’s sister Olivia and by his father Larry. Olivia is a fine up and coming mezzo-soprano and Larry is my college’s choral director (also our provost and interim president) so the effect was enchanting. To top it off, they sang against a backdrop of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The wedding was held outside, and although it had rained hard earlier in the afternoon, sunshine had broken through by the time of the wedding. We watched the two exchange their vows as the mist rose off the hills.
Several thoughts went through my mind as I listened. One was just appreciation of the poem itself. One feels the joy pushing through the images. The poet is reaching for every metaphor he can, each one topping the one before, until language finally fails him and he must acknowledge the insufficiency of words.
Second, I was struck by how Micah and Anna Marie had folded ideas from the poem into their wedding vows. Rumi helped them conceptualize what their union was about.
I also got to thinking how each age seems to adopts its own Middle Eastern poet, which lends an air of mystery or exoticism (or orientalism, as Edward Said would say) to passion and love. In Victorian times it was The Rubaiyat of the Persian poet Omar Khayyam, translated by Edward Fitzgerald. When I was in high school it was the Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran, especially The Prophet. Now it’s a 13th century Sufi mystic, although I must say that Rumi has a greater range and more versatility than the other two and may have greater staying power. Translations of his poetry keep coming.
Poetry is language straining against the limitations of the here and now as we strive to touch base with the spiritual. That’s why poetry is so often present at rituals like weddings, where two physical presences come together and seek to become a sacred union. Language is never enough but language is what we have. In the very act of saying, “I am out of words to describe how spirit mingles in this marriage,” Rumi points to that mingling.