cloudy weather

The moment my eyes are flooded with tears

Her image, like a lustrous pearl, appears.

"Pour more wine for this dear honored guest,"

I tell my eyes, whispering in their ears.

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

It's lonely at the top. I've been following the tennis tournament in Indian Wells which is now down to the women finalists and the men's semi-finals. A seeming crowd of contestants over a handful of courts and stadiums is reduced to ten contestants (counting a doubles final) on the one main stadium. It seems so lonely at the top. Ascendancy has an elite feel, a loss of camaraderie, of jostling with the ordinary folk. Only the cream are playing now.

I feel I've lost my connection with Rumi now. I started with the richness of a year's worth of quatrains and I'm left with a month's worth. I stay with the task because I set it and mean to finish it, that's all. Today, Rumi offers me a pearl of wisdom and I can but stare blankly at it. He whispers into the ears of his eyes but nothing touches me. Perhaps I have lost my ability to weep. Perhaps my attention is merely elsewhere.