Sufi Rhythms - The Golden Bone Chair

On the golden bone chair I sit, the crowd hushed, crickets chirping in the courtyards outside. Lights from the inn show the colours of the people, travellers all. I play a short Sufi tune on my lute and then proceed to recite these rhythmic words.

"A cup of salt,

A maiden's ring,

The sign of the cross,

A lady in frost,

A child freed from damp,

A knight in the sun,

A cave in spring,

The olive branch,

A lady's silken web,

A healed armour,

And a green-veined precious stone."

My journey, I realised, is my own. Even though I am surrounded by my friends and fellow travellers, I, like them, have my own story. I have worn a black robe with my hair tied back from my face, austere, but only to draw attention to the words. I wear ancient gold jewellery at my ears and wrists. A man with a dark complexion and a soulful gift, plays a reed, swathed in his fine garments, cross legged in the shadows, now that he is young again.

Suddenly he speaks of Rumi, the Sufi mystic, and recites excerpts of his words in the silence:

"Borrow the Beloved's Eyes"

Borrow the Beloved's eyes.

Look through them and you will see the Beloved's face

everywhere. No tiredness, no jaded boredom.

"I shall be your eye and your hand and your loving."

Let that happen, and things

you have hated will become helpers.

(Rumi - mystic poet)

Then he becomes silent and the room begins to fill with talk again and intoxicating music like wine, comes from the players out in the courtyard. I move off the chair and merge into the crowd. There is merriment and colours, candlelight and clinking glasses, moonlight on the stones.

copyright Monika Roleff 2005.