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♫ Metaphrastes ♫
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I enter the corridor between the cells. A great honor! How I have asked, begged, and prayed to have the chance of speaking with the old master poets, to seek their advice, to benefit from their wisdom! Finally, after lengthy negotiations, I am granted admission to the Akasha Palace. Here, not only are their timeless works are safeguarded, but also their personalities from that time remain in perpetual protective custody. Nothing fades, not even the spirit of our ancestors who stand ready to answer us—if we can find the way to them.
I have been allowed into the corridor of poets—there isn’t one for short prose writers—and for those who weren’t confined to poetry alone, their cells are said to open onto other corridors: tragedies, epic poems, comedies, choral odes, astrological treatises…
But this is just a speculation, not a certainty. The keepers here aren’t very forthcoming. In any case, it seems that the criterion for admission to the inmates is the kiss of a muse. Here, perhaps, it was Euterpe’s. I read names on the nameplates on the doors, names like Milton, Dante, Bolo, Orpheus, Neidhart, Brant, Shiki, Bukowski, Vergil, Yeats, Tyrtaios, Tao Yuanming, and many others I have never heard of. Euterpe was diligent. Or was it Erato?
Who should I ask here? I don’t have much time. I am allowed to ask one of the poets behind the heavy wooden doors a question. For years, decades, I have been able to contemplate this one question. I know it inside and out. It is the question, the key to the answer behind all answers.
The guard already looks impatient. From Bukowski’s cell, a howl seems to come, but maybe it’s the wind of time trapped in these endless, twisting corridors. My gaze falls on the nameplate Rumi. Yes! He will be the one! He will know the answer and gladly tell me. Internally, I rejoice as I slide the small wooden panel in the door to the side. Yes, who could give me better information than the Persian master poet and visionary of mystical love and spiritual ecstasy!
“Jalaluddin?” I call into the darkness of his cell. Dimly, I see a man wearing a turbaned dervish cap, spinning in place with outstretched arms. He radiates an infinite serenity, beyond all description, and at the same time, an unspeakable joy shimmers out from him in spirals, piercing deep into my heart.
don’t know if I stood there for a single breath or an eternity. The hand of the guard pushes the small wooden hatch to Rumi’s cell shut. He guides me back. When I finally stand outside again and the guard has closed the gates of the palace behind me, I begin to spin, slowly on my axis, with outstretched arms.
Akashic records: 
Muse:
Jalaluddin Rumi: