“Politics need not be a raging fire destroying everything in its path,” President Biden told us in his Inauguration address, adding, “Every disagreement doesn’t have to be a cause for total war.”

Joe Biden is so right for the times. His call for healing is heartfelt, but he’s no dreamer. He’s a genuine humanist, and an idealistic pragmatist. In his honor, here are the lyrics to “Rumi’s Field,” a song I wrote inspired by the 13th century Sufi poet, Rumi: “Beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing there is a field. I will meet you there.”

Rumi’s Field

We glare at theme

Through chinks in the fence,

Trying to mount an insane defense.

Keep telling ourselves

We’ll figure it out,

But we’re always standing

In the shadow of a doubt.

Some rise with their anger,

Making peace with their pain.

At the border it’s quiet,

At least for today.

From a birds-eye view,

It all looks the same.

An enemy is someone

Whose story we’ve never heard.

Beyond wrongdoing, beyond right,

There’s a field, Rumi’s field.

It’s far past hate and black & white,

And I will meet you there.

Facts are facts. What’s true is true.

But I know different facts from you.

And when this bloody day is through,

We’ll meet in Rumi’s field.

Justice, justice shall you pursue.

But you must love

The stranger too,

The story that you never knew -

Don’t you want to know?

The best lack conviction,

While so many are filled

With a yearning for vengeance,

An anger distilled.

And there’s a house I yearn to build

Out in Rumi’s field.

Beyond wrongdoing, beyond right, (etc.)

© Peter Melnick 2016