Immigrant Song
Immigrant Song
An ode to empathy.
Let's go to the ocean.
Sand and shells in a bottle
don't tell the whole story.
I need to know why
staring at them on the shelf
brings wave upon wave
of cold, thirsty convulsion.
I don't know the ocean
as someone dwelling nearby,
or toiling for a living upon it.
Yet I'm drawn to the water
as if the moon is seducing me
with her undulating passion.
Somehow, somewhere,
sometime long, long ago,
I crossed over that body,
only to now find myself
alive in this one.
Your loving does not know it's majesty
until it knows its helplessness.
~ Rumi
(trans. Coleman Barks)
