Super Bowl Monday

"I've been reading Kabir, and..."

"Kabir? Who is Kabir?  Sounds foreign."

"He's a poet, a Sufi poet who writes about..."

"Sufi! What the hell is Sufi?

"Well, I don't really know. Something spiritual, I think. I'm sure. And old. Ancient."

"if you don't know, why are your reading it?"

"Hmmm." She is silent, thinking....If you don't know what you are doing....reading...why are you doing it, reading it? "A good question," she says. "Something Kabir might have asked. A very Sufi-like question."

He's not really listening. He's reading the paper, the sports section, even though the Super Bowl is over.

"I could say that reading the newspaper when you know what happened is something Kabir would do. It's "the breath inside the breath.'"

Silence.

"I said that reading...."

"I heard what you said. I don't remember any Kabir. Is he a sports writer?"

"NO! I told you. He is...or was...a poet, a Sufi poet like I said."

"So he's dead."

"Well, yes. He lived a long time ago."

"So you never really knew him."

"Of course not. He's Persian or...." She stumbles, embarrassed that she doesn't really know when or where Kabir lived and died. "He was a wise man whose words transcend the centuries, whose wisdom speaks to us today even though he never had a cell phone or heard of the Super Bowl."

"Poor bastard. No wonder you feel sorry for him."

"I don't!" she says, too loudly. "All I was saying is that he was a teacher, a wise man..."

"Like Rumi."

That stops her. "Rumi! You know Rumi?"

"Well, not personally of course, but better than you know Kelce."

"Is he a poet too?"

"No. He's just a guy with a famous girl friend, a pretty woman who reminds me of you...she probably reads dead poets too."

"Oh."

Kabir says, Who is it we spend our entire life loving?

Swift says, You're perfect for me.