There is a saying in Russian, “Kratkost sestra talanta,” which appropriately has no direct translation, but generally means, “In order to share some wisdom, sayings do not have to be extensive.”
My hope is that #25wtT stimulates conversation and deep listening—or sobhet as the Turkish say among my readers. These sayings are intended to simmer within and tantalize the mind to step into the space of the heart, as well as inspire the heart to disclose itself within the realm of the mind.
The idea for #25wtT began when I noticed that many of my shorter poems and brief phrases contained in the longer poems were getting particular attention from readers. I surmised that some just prefer to read short things on which they can reflect, repost, or tweet. Each seems to tug at the imagination and musing of my friends, generating questions and speculations as to what these short passages mean. Perhaps the Russian proverb is correct, that the meaning of a poem is inversely proportional to its length. To my delight, many of these poemettes turned out to be exactly twenty-five words, and through their meaning and metaphor, I started calling them, Twenty-Five Words toward Truth. Their length made them easier to tweet, so with the suggestion of a friend (thnx Maha), I added the hashtag and abbreviation, thus becoming #25wtT.
I was pondering this quote attributed to Mevlana Celaleddin-i Rumi: “The nature of reality is this: It is hidden, and it is hidden, and it is hidden.”
And I thought about the introduction to this book. The meaning of these poemettes is hidden from you, by you, and within you. We take for granted that reality is something as “apparent and same” to everyone. But the truth of reality is not to be confused with the reality of truth; in the former, truth is both hidden and there, and in the latter expression, it is hidden there. The power of unfound truths spins the universe. It is the amazing and humbling void of the true truth’s absence that compels the spirituality initiated to fill it. It is this absence that stirs us to seek its meaning within the external world of poetry, beauty, movement, romance, and esotericism. What unites the world for all of us is not the distribution of riches, but the revelation of wealth within our individual poverty—faqr fakhri (Arabic). What every poemette in Twenty-Five Words toward the Truth fails to reveal in its brevity can be endlessly expounded upon within the unfathomable nothingness inside us.
In keeping with the twenty-five-word spirit, here are some bullets on what #25wtT is about. Each is twenty-five words—count them:
• A collection of twenty-five-word poemettes that were inspired by something longer. Consider them simply as velveteen petals fallen from the rose, clipped from the thorns.
• Sometimes they take 120 seconds to jot, sometimes an hour to write, sometimes years to finish, yet I can never completely understand a single poemette.
• Written in mere seconds, a poemette is born into a slowly maturing child; whenever I reread my own, he needs more guidance, pruning, allegorical fine- tuning.
• In my mind, the pen gets in the way. Poetry is really, for me, finding the shortest possible distance from my heart to the reader.