The middle of the night.

I collect my baggage and walk past the sea of head-scarved women in traditional dress and men with penetrating eyes and mustaches toward the driver who waits for me.  He follows a route along the Sea of Marmara.  I think I can hear the waves lapping against the boats bobbing on the sea, but it is only the proof of the wind I am looking at.  I am really hearing nothing.  The night is clear.  There are stars… a full moon.

The driver takes a turn up into the cobbled streets of the Sultanahmet past The Blue Mosque and the Aya Sofya.  They are ablaze with light. They are magnificent… a sultan and an emperor forever facing each other… the absolute power that corrupts faith absolutely. The stars in the sky look down from above and weep at their beauty. The moon simply wonders endless questions.

We stop before the stone facade of an old hammam… now a hotel.  The driver rings for the porter. The porter arrives from subterranean depths opening the heavy, leaded glass and wrought iron door.  He has been asleep.  He rubs his eyes awake and says, “Salaam”… a young sultan himself sleeping in the stone depths on a divan of sumptuous quilts and pillows.

We descend into the depths of stone only to  lead me up Byzantine twists and turns of a narrow metal and wooden spiral staircase suspended far above in the ceiling… up old stone steps muffled by the soft kilim carpet of a common room… then up a second marble circular staircase to a small chamber. The balcony window overlooks the lighted garden of palms and cyclamen… the weedy old vine-covered hammam… a minaret.  It is a room with a view.  It is a room fragrant with the scent of laurel.

I fall on the wooden bed of brilliant white pillows and duvets… stare at the embroidered Islamic pattern of flowers and stars above me on the canopy.  There are no human faces to defile its surface and, through it, I take another twisting passage down into the soft reaches of sleep.  The call to prayer at dawn from the minaret behind the garden awakens me… then the echoes of praise to Allah from muezzins all across the Sultanahmet.  I’ve slept with a mind whirling like a dervish suspended in the empty space.

I buy a slim volume of poems by Rumi from the bookseller next to the money changer.  I read myself into the place of Seljuk opulence.  My thoughts begin to whirl slowly until the late afternoon finds itself revolving into twilight in one graceful movement.  My thoughts revolve out of me one by one  My thoughts have become the fragrance of laurel.

if you don’t have
enough madness in you
go and rehabilitate yourself

if you’ve lost a hundred times
the chess game of this life
be prepared to lose one more

if you’re the wounded string
of a harp on this stage
play once more then resonate no more

if you’re that exhausted bird
fighting a falcon for too long
make a comeback and be strong

you’ve carved a wooden horse
riding and calling it real
fooling yourself in life

though only a wooden horse
ride it again my friend
and gallop to the next post

you’ve never really listened
to what God has always
tried to tell you

yet you keep hoping
after your mock prayers
salvation will arrive

                                                       ~~Rumi

 

 

 

It is early evening when I put down the book of poems.  A pot of dark tea sits beside me on the bed.  It rests there on a blue tray of wood and brass painted with plump grapes the color of Claret. The sugar cubes are melting in the bottom of the tea glass disturbed only by the presence of the tiny silver spoon.  Soon, perhaps, I will stir the tea and drink.  But now, I arise and look down into the garden.  The innocent cyclamen bloom like little pink, red and white souls ascending.