THE WATERWHEEL

Stay together friends.
Don’t scatter and sleep.
Our friendship is made
of being awake.

The waterwheel accepts water
and turns and gives it away
weeping.

That way it stays in the garden,
whereas another roundness rolls
through a dry riverbed looking
for what it thinks it wants.

Stay here, quivering with each moment
like a drop of mercury 

— JALALUDDIN RUMI, 12TH CENTURY