fish food

Love's intoxication, my disintegration:

My heart's beyond the need for food or sleep.

My body floats at sea; my feet and head

Are nowhere to be found; my soul has fled.

#1645: From Rumi's Kolliyaat-e Shams-e Tabrizi

Search word: dis-

Despite the potential delight at its being the first day of spring, I've woken this morning feeling disoriented, disconnected and without focus. I find Rumi speaking of disintegration. He is telling me that he has gone, his soul has fled. I imagine, in this verse, that someone has suggested to Rumi that his lost friend and teacher, Shams, was beheaded and feet also amputated with the torso thrown into the sea. There it floats and bloats and bobs about, waiting to become fish food.

My own feet are disconnected
floating out to space
like tiny bubbles
or sad tears I've shed.

A slab of rotting flesh am I
eternally disjointed
I follow my lover
to the realm of death.