By Jalaluddin Rumi
Translated by Coleman Barks
You that worry with travel plans,
read again the place in the Qur'an
where Moses is taking the Jewish
nation out of slavery. You so
frantic to have more money, recall
what they abandoned to wander in
the wilderness. You who feel hurt,
remember the pavilions and houses
left behind. You that lead the
community through difficulties, read
about the abundant fountains they
walked away from to have freedom.
You who dress in clothes that appear
to have elegant meaning, you with so
much charm, remember how your face
will decay to dirt. You with lots of
property, "They left their gardens
and the quietly running streams."
You who smile at funerals going by,
you that love language, measure wind
in stanzas and recall the exodus,
the wandering forty-year sacrifice.
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Adam and I went out to lunch for his first day of spring break, though we had to stop for gas and stuff at CVS first (and since Adam slept till nearly noon for his first day of spring break, it was nearly 1:30 p.m. by the time we ate!). Before he was up, I wrote a review of Deep Space Nine's "Cardassians", a not-very-well-written episode redeemed by Garak and Bashir, and when we got home I took a walk through our increasingly azalea-filled neighborhood (purples in full bloom, pinks about half, white buds just opening). Adam had plans with a friend for the afternoon, but the friend slept even later than he did and they didn't end up getting together till evening.
At that point we had had dinner with my parents and Paul and I decided to watch X-Men: First Class, for which I didn't have very high hopes because I didn't much love X2 and never saw The Last Stand. In fact, I loved it -- I liked the Holocaust backstory and the Cold War story, I thought the pacing was great, I enjoyed seeing McAvoy, Lawrence, Fassbender, Bacon, and especially Hoult in those roles (I keep seeing the latter as the boy with a crush on Colin Firth from A Single Man), I have no idea what the critics were complaining about. Here are a few more photos of lambs at the University of Maryland, where Daniel is struggling with midterms:
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