Only Breath

Mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi translated by Coleman Barks

Only Breath

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim,
not Hindu, Buddhist, sufi, or zen.
Not any religion or cultural system.
I am not from the Eastor the West,
not out of the ocean or up, from the ground,
not natural or ethereal,
not composed of elements at all.

I do not exist,am not an entity in this world or the next,
did not descend from Adam or Eve or any, origin story.
My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless.

Neither body or soul.
I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one and that one call to and know,
first, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human being.