song of the reed

REED


My center’s a reed
I play like a flute,
producing the seed
that years for your root.

The Hebrew halil
implies it’s a hollow
which, blown, is the reel
whose music you follow.

Remember the bed
when I went to pluck
the reed whose sounds spread
each time that we fuck.

If you hear it wail
you’re hearing the pain
we’re filled with an feel feel,
when from love we abstain.

Inspired by a poem by Rumi that I heard on KUSC when driving home after watching a performance of Walter Braunfels’s opera “The Birds”:

The Reed

Listen to the song of the reed,How it wails with the pain of separation:
“Ever since I was taken from my reed bedMy woeful song has caused men and women to weep.I seek out those whose hearts are torn by separationFor only they understand the pain of this longing.Whoever is taken away from his homelandYearns for the day he will return.In every gathering, among those who are happy or sad,I cry with the same lament.Everyone hears according to his own understanding,None has searched for the secrets within me.My secret is found in my lamentBut an eye or ear without light cannot know it..”
The sound of the reed comes from fire, not windWhat use is one’s life without this fire?It is the fire of love that brings music to the reed.It is the ferment of love that gives taste to the wine.The song of the reed soothes the pain of lost love.Its melody sweeps the veils from the heart.Can there be a poison so bitter or a sugar so sweetAs the song of the reed?To hear the song of the reedeverything you have ever known must be left behind.
– Version by Jonathan Star“Rumi - In the Arms of the Beloved”Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, New York 1997

© 2009 Gershon Hepner 4/26/09