Rumi, BLM and Policy Makers

Rumi, the great Persian Poet in 1200th century wrote a beautiful poem:

“I said to the night,

“If you are in love with the moon,

it is because you never stay for long.”

The night turned to me and said,

“It is not my fault. I never see the Sun,

how can I know that love is endless?”

My attempt to maintain the original theme but changing the characters. I chose winter and spring because because they constantly change but never quite meet. The original theme compels readers to internalize and question the boundaries they have set on their love.

“I said to the policy maker,

“If you you don’t press charges on the officers,

then you are telling blacks that your par…”

“excuse me”, the policy maker interrupted,

“It is not my these guys commit crime,

how can I be empathetic to a guy that commits a crime? Are you kidding me?”

Rumi uses the night, moon and the sun to illustrate the boundaries of compassion and love. From earth, the moon and sun rarely meets, therefore the night only knows of the moon. This illustrates limited perspective by revealing that love is bounded by thing the night only interact with. In my poem I used the current issue of charging police for killing unarmed black men. The characters reflect policy makers who see nothing wrong with policing in black communities. It shows the lack of compassion due to limited perspective. It also shows that perspective is not being accepted because the the policy maker’s focus is on the crime, not police actions.