Rumi in the pocket

I am reading RUMI. In particular this edition:
The Essential Rumi Paperback — September 2, 1999
English edition by Rumi (Author), Coleman Barks (Translation)

The text is incredible for my Western mind, used to memos, jokes, and gratuitous sarcasm. Plus, my mind expects to frame everything in the Catholic morality I grew up with.

The literature of BOCCACCIO or the fables of FEBRO or AESOP jumps to the conclusion of all the short poems of RUMI, almost as if they wanted to take their place.

But no, RUMI is simply elsewhere, higher up, where you don’t expect it. Winter was beautiful thanks to reading RUMI in the little empty spaces of my day.

The surprise is there, at the end of each poem. And what images, and what stories of absurd sexuality, and what examples…Reading RUMI was almost as beautiful as visiting your city KONYA.