Rumi’s Poem “Only Breath”, which was written over 800 years ago, still has a lot of power when it’s words are read today.

Read and Listen to “Only Breath” and answer the following questions:

1. Summarize it (in your own words).
2. Do you like the poem – why or why not?
3. In your life and/or today’s society, is this poem relevant?

 

 

 

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu
Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion

or cultural system. I am not from the East
or the West, not out of the ocean or up

from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not
composed of elements at all. I do not exist,

am not an entity in this world or in the next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve or any

origin story. My place is placeless, a trace
of the traceless. Neither body or soul.

I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one and that one call to and know,

first, last, outer, inner, only that
breath breathing human being.