'Sweetness'

Rumi was a thirteenth-century Persian poet, theologian, and Sufi mystic whose work has been translated more than any other poet in history. He used one metaphor above all others: sweetness. Honey, the taste of the divine, the intoxication of the mystic, the longing of the soul for what it came from. His most famous image is a reed flute crying for the reed bed it was cut from. That cry — the ney's wail — is the sound of a soul that remembers where it belongs.

In Persian, the word jan means both soul and sweetheart. What you love most is what you are most yourself around. What you find sweetest is where your soul recognizes its home. Sweetness is not pleasure. It is recognition.

This is for the woman whose soul has tasted something true and cannot be satisfied by less.