What happens when a 13th-century Sufi poet shows up at an Oakland bakery? Ralph Dranow's Jelaluddin Rumi Comes to Oakland answers with poems that find the sacred tucked into the everyday—in a driving instructor's patient smile, an emergency room nurse's steady hands, two oak trees standing witness to time. With tenderness and sly humor, Dranow transforms the mundane into the miraculous: grocery lines become meditations, a new bath mat sings lullabies, political figures stumble toward redemption. These are poems of deep noticing, written by someone who has learned that slowing down isn't resignation—it's revolution. A balm for troubled times and hungry hearts.
What happens when a 13th-century Sufi poet shows up at an Oakland bakery? Ralph Dranow's Jelaluddin Rumi Comes to Oakland answers with poems that find the sacred tucked into the everyday—in a driving instructor's patient smile, an emergency room nurse's steady hands, two oak trees standing witness to time. With tenderness and sly humor, Dranow transforms the mundane into the miraculous: grocery lines become meditations, a new bath mat sings lullabies, political figures stumble toward redemption. These are poems of deep noticing, written by someone who has learned that slowing down isn't resignation—it's revolution. A balm for troubled times and hungry hearts.
