The nightingale loves the rose,
but its love is fragile.
Settle on the thorn,
and the heart shatters,
wings drip blood,
the song falters into cries.
It is beauty bound to fear,
a love that recoils at the first wound.
But see the moth, drawn to the flame.
It does not cry.
It does not resist.
It circles the fire with no thought of self,
no hesitation, no fear of the end.
It surrenders wholly,
letting the blaze consume every shadow,
every weight of being.
And in that silent burning,
the moth transcends itself,
shedding the world
to become pure flame,
a light unbound,
a song no longer sung,
only lived, only burned, only risen.
True love, Rumi whispers,
is not the wounded song of the nightingale,
but the luminous silence of the moth.
