The Essential Rumi

Knock, Knock!

Your heart is like a little house.
It has a door.
And guess what?
Feelings come to visit.

Knock, knock! Who is there?
It is Happy!
Happy runs in and jumps around.
Hello, Happy. Come in.

Knock, knock! Who is there?
It is Sad.
Sad walks in slowly and sits down.
Hello, Sad. Come in.
You can sit with me.

Knock, knock! Who is there?
It is Mad!
Mad stomps and makes fists.
Hello, Mad. Come in.
You can visit.
But you cannot drive.
We do not hit. We do not throw.
Mad can stomp. Hands stay kind.

Knock, knock! Who is there?
It is Scared.
Scared hides behind the door.
Hello, Scared. Come in.
Sit by me. I will listen.

Here is the secret about visitors.
They visit.
They do not live here.
Happy goes home. Sad goes home.
Mad and Scared go home too.
Your little house stays yours.

So when a big feeling knocks, open the door.
Say its name.
Hello, Sad. Hello, Mad.
Say it with me: feelings visit. They don’t stay.

Then take a big slow breath.
Wave when the feeling goes home.

A note for the grown-up

For the grown-up reading aloud: This is the smallest true piece of Rumi’s most famous poem, “The Guest House,” from The Essential Rumi in Coleman Barks’s free English versions. Being human is a guest house, every morning brings a new arrival, and every visitor gets a welcome, the dark ones too, because each comes as a guide. Two cautions the little version already fences. Welcoming a feeling is not obeying it: Mad may visit, but Mad doesn’t drive. And “goes home” doesn’t promise a feeling leaves on command, only that no feeling stays forever. The grown-up book is about much more, longing and love and God, and its English wording is a modern American poet’s free rendering of 13th-century Persian verse. Feelings as guests is the piece a 6-year-old can live by today.

Hundreds of Ways

Some mornings you wake up
feeling a little empty.
A little scared.
That’s okay. Grown-ups feel it too.

You could start the day with worry.
Or you could start it with something you love.

Pick up your drum.
Bang, bang, boom!
That is one way to say thank you.

Grab your crayons.
Draw a big yellow sun.
That is a way to say thank you too.

Sing a silly song.
Hug the dog.
Smell the rain on the window.
There are hundreds of ways.
Say it with me: hundreds of ways!

The scared feeling might still be there.
That’s okay.
It can sit with you while you play.
You don’t have to chase it away first.

Breakfast still comes.
Shoes still come. School still comes.
But first, one thing you love.

So tomorrow, when you wake up,
pick one.
Your drum, your crayons, your song.
Do it with your whole self.
That’s your way of saying thank you.

A note for the grown-up

For the grown-up reading aloud: This comes from Rumi’s “A Great Wagon,” in Coleman Barks’s version. The poem says we wake up empty and frightened, like every other day; it says not to start by opening the door to the study and reading, but to take down a musical instrument; it asks that the beauty we love be what we do, because there are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground. “Saying thank you” is the child-sized stand-in for kneeling and kissing the ground, which in the poem is an act of worship. Two cautions. The poem says not to start with the study, not to skip it for good, so the beats keep breakfast, shoes and school. And playing is not a cure for the fear; the poem’s “we” are still empty and frightened when they pick up the instrument, which is why the scared feeling gets to stay in the room.

Say It Your Way

Lila loves her grandma.
She wants to tell her so.

She makes a card.
The letters are wobbly.
The heart is lopsided.
It says I love you, with one letter backward.

Her big cousin looks at it.
That’s spelled wrong, he says.
And hearts aren’t that shape.
Do it the right way.

Lila’s face gets hot.
She hides the card behind her back.
She doesn’t want to give it anymore.

But Grandma saw.
Grandma holds out her hand.
Lila gives her the card.
Grandma holds it close to her chest.

I don’t need it fancy, Grandma says.
I need it from you.
Say it your way.

The cousin looks at his shoes.
Then he says sorry.
He was wrong to make Lila stop.

Spelling is good to learn.
You can learn it at the table, slowly.
But love does not wait for spelling.
Say it with me: say it your way!

And when your little brother
sings you a song with the wrong words,
let him sing.
That’s his way.

Who do you love?
Tell them today.
Draw it. Sing it. Say it.
Say it your way.

A note for the grown-up

For the grown-up reading aloud: This is “Moses and the Shepherd,” one of the best-loved stories in Rumi’s Masnavi, here in Coleman Barks’s version. A shepherd prays out loud in homely words, offering to fix God’s shoes, comb God’s hair and bring God milk. Moses scolds him for talking to God like an uncle, and the shepherd wanders off ashamed. Then God rebukes Moses: he came to unite, not to sever; God looks inside at the humility, not at the language; the shepherd’s wrong way of talking beats a hundred right ways. Moses runs after the shepherd to tell him so. The primer swaps God for a grandma and prayer for a card, and keeps the mechanism: the one receiving the love looks at the heart, and the corrector was wrong to silence it. The poem itself is about worship and goes further than the primer, ending with Moses saying there are no rules for worship; the primer leaves spelling worth learning, because the poem never says the shepherd’s words were correct, only that they were enough. The story sits inside Rumi’s Islamic world (Moses is a prophet in the Qur’an too), which the child-sized picture leaves out.