Alma College Rumi Hour

Rumi hour in 15! Join us at highland blush!

Hello! Just a reminder that Rumi Hour will take place today at 4 at Highland Blush.

Please feel free to join us for a deep breath from life's day to day stressors through celebration of the written word.

Here is a poem entitled "It's This Way" by the courageous Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet who faced so much hardship in his life:

I stand in the advancing light,

my hands hungry, the world beautiful.

My eyes can't get enough of the trees--

they're so hopeful, so green.

A sunny road runs through the mulberries,

I'm at the window of the prison infirmary.

I can't smell the medicines--

carnations must be blooming nearby.

It's this way:

being captured is beside the point,

the point is not to surrender.

translated by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Kokunk

Just a reminder that Rumi hour will be happening today at 4pm at Highland Blush downtown! We would love to see you there!

Here is a poem by the wonderful Russian poet Gennady Aygi called "Going To Sleep In Childhood":

but high up--my river of spirits:
you running inward to each other
and thus--growing dark--
far off and far off

and from bruises of cherishing
beloved and soft
your dresses are strange in that river:

could it be in sparks of child-spirit
there in that black blue distance

and--like water holes in opening light
you flicker far off in the light of the field
as over forest clearings--their holy faces:

you somewhere in the field in the wind
like a manuscript now in sleep--with whitening
surface:

are bright

Rumi hour will be relocating!!

Beginning this Thursday we will be hosting an hour of poetry at Highland Blush in downtown Alma at 4pm. Please stop by! Sharing of your own work or that of others is welcome and encouraged but not necessary!

This week's Rumi Hour will be held at usual time and place, 4:00 p.m. this Thursday in Clack Auditorium! All are welcome.
Here is a poem by W.S. Merwin called "Variation On A Theme":

Thank you my lifelong afternoon
late in this season of no age
thank you for my windows above the rivers
thank you for the true love you brought me to
when it was time at last and for words
that come out of silence and take me by surprise
and have carried me through the clear day
without once turning to look at me
thank you for friends and long echoes of them
and for those mistakes that were only mine
for the homesickness that guides the plovers
from somewhere they loved before
they woke into it to another place
they loved before they ever saw it
thank you whole body and hand and eye
thank you sights and moments known
only to me who will not see them again
except in my mind's eye where they have not changed
thank you for showing me the morning stars
and for the dogs who are guiding me.