Dundalk Gets to Grips with Islam

louth | arts and media | opinion/analysis Friday March 19, 2004 13:42 by Sean Crudden sean.crudden at iol dot ie 5 Anglesea Terrace 087 9739945

ELF Studies Rumi

A small group with the title ELF meets each Wednesday evening in the AOH Hall in Dundalk to read and discuss poets as varied as Rumi, Euripedes and TS Eliot.

Weekly for the past month or two I have been fortunate to be allowed to study with the ELF Group at sessions in the AOH Hall. One of the poets we have been studying is Rumi (Born Afghanistan 1207: Died Turkey 1273). The text being used is “The Essential Rumi” published by Penguin Books.

The following are a few lines I wrote in the class on 10 March 2004 (a response to Rumi’s verse).

“Rumi: Ruminate
Transfiguration.
Enlighten with
The light of joy
Lovely world. Stave
Off depression and death.
Painless ease
No struggle
In the light
Of your candle.
Pleasant imager
Of burgeoning life
Live again!”

It strikes me that the regions now under occupation by American forces were highly civilised at a time when the Norman invasion was beginning the destruction of celtic Ireland. The total achievement of America in the recent wars is not worth one page (or even one line) of Rumi’s writing.