In The Spirit Of Rumi 34-Chickpeas Poem by Michael Shepherd

Today I’m cooking chickpeas,
having, as the Argentinians say,
‘earned my chickpeas’ – since
they cannot always run to
bread-and-butter but I digress

As the heat rises, the chickpeas bounce
up to the surface as if they’ll
do all they can in that – what? –
half-living, half-dead state? -
to jump out of the pan and
go – where?

Sometimes they bounce up so vigorously
that I almost feel guilty about being so ignorant and
so insensitive about Creation’s arrangements
for chickpeas and men.. isn’t being boiled thus,
becoming soft and nutritious,
being eaten with (barely) gratitude,
releasing the generous earth’s minerals
to feed this great creation, man, in person,
their destiny, their self-realisation?

Come to think about it, they are in
some several ways more virtuous than I:
they’ve done their level best to be
good chickpeas (have I in my way, equalled them?) :
they’ve not tried to be anything
other than themselves (alas, oh have I not…) :
they’ve rested content to be as they are,
not as far as I know desiring
mutation, or whatever (I’m full of desires every second..) :
they’ve improved continuously through
their life (alas, what can I claim…?) :
and they don’t waste their precious energies
fearing that they’ll die before they’re quite, quite ready
(here I won't even start to comment...) :

In the world of metaphor, it seems,
chickpeas and I are equals;
perhaps, dear Rumi, that’s
just how it ought to be.