a wish come true

All our lives we'd seen each other's face, but

Today we looked into each other's eyes

To find we feared to lose this to another:

We spoke with eyebrows, listened with our eyes.

#1267: From Rumi's Kolliyaat-e Shams-e Tabrizi

I remain bedazzled this morning by last night's tennis match between the gentle self-effacing David Nalbandian and the effusive youngster Marcos Baghdatis with the whole crowd behind him. Tennis should be a contest of warriors in single combat, not a contest of wills between an individual and a crowd. This match, for me, lacked authenticity as a tennis match.

Australia Day is over and behind us now. I despise these kinds of celebration. I'm simply not a patriot. I guess my annoyance at last night's match is expressive of that leaning.

What Rumi spoke about seems, by contrast, so fragile, so intimate, so personal. He captures here the experience of falling in love, of recognizing one's own special beloved in the eyes of another. In this instance it is the recognition of spiritual teacher and student except that each was to learn from each other and only one would survive to tell the story.

I must say it's a long time since I've been in love, since I've looked into special eyes like that. I don't know if it will ever happen again. It has never worked out well in the past although it has always been productive of something, the best of these being my son.

If it's possible to wish for such a thing, I would wish to look into the eyes of a special beloved, I would wish to fall in love again. This year.