Any Chance Meeting

by Rumi

In every gathering, in any chance
meeting on the street, there is a

shine, an elegance rising up. Today
I recognized that that jewel-like

beauty is the presence, our loving
confusion, the glow in which watery

clay gets brighter than fire, the
one we call the Friend. I begged,

“Is there a way into you? a ladder?”
“Your head is the ladder. Bring

it down under your feet.” The mind,
this globe of awareness, is a starry

universe that when you push off from
it with your foot, a thousand new

roads come clear, as you yourself do
at dawn, sailing through the light.