Poems by Rumi
Contributed by Nihát Tsolak
If...
if you don't have enough madness in
you
go and rehabilitate yourself
if you've lost a hundred times the
chess game of this life
be prepared to lose one more
if you're the wounded string of a
harp on this stage
play once more then resonate no more
if you're that exhausted bird
fighting a falcon for too long
make a comeback and be strong
you've carved a wooden
horse
riding and calling it real
fooling yourself in life
though only a
wooden horse
ride it again my friend
and gallop to the next post
you've
never really listened
to what God has always
tried to tell you
yet you
keep hoping
after your mock prayers
salvation will arrive
Ghazal 1194 Translation by Nader
Khalili "Rumi, Fountain of Fire" Cal-Earth Press, 1994 
Like This
If anyone asks you
how the
perfect satisfaction
of all our sexual wanting
will look, lift your
face
and say,
Like this.
When someone mentions the
gracefulness
of the nightsky, climb up on the roof
and dance and
say,
Like this.
If anyone wants to know what "spirit" is,
or
what "God's fragrance" means,
lean your head toward him or her.
Keep your
face there close.
Like this.
When someone quotes the old poetic
image
about clouds gradually uncovering the moon,
slowly loosen knot by
knot the strings
of your robe.
Like this.
If anyone wonders how
Jesus raised the dead,
don't try to explain the miracle.
Kiss me on the
lips.
Like this. Like this.
When someone asks what it means
to
"die for love," point
here.
If someone asks how tall I am,
frown
and measure with your fingers the space
between the creases on your
forehead.
This tall.
The soul sometimes leaves the body, the
returns.
When someone doesn't believe that,
walk back into my
house.
Like this.
When lovers moan,
they're telling our
story.
Like this.
I am a sky where spirits live.
Stare into
this deepening blue,
while the breeze says a secret.
Like
this.
When someone asks what there is to do,
light the candle in his
hand.
Like this.
How did Joseph's scent come to
Jacob?
Huuuuu.
How did Jacob's sight
return?
Huuuu.
A little wind cleans the eyes.
Like
this.
When Shams comes back from Tabriz,
he'll put just his head
around the edge
of the door to surprise us
Like
this.
From 'The Essential Rumi',
Translations by Coleman Barks with John Moyne
I
AM NOT
Muslims!
What can I do? I have lost my identity!
I am not a Christian, Jew, pagan, or
Muslim.
I am neither an Easterner nor a Westerner,
neither a
land nor a sea person.
Nature can't fully account for me,
nor
can the whirling cosmos.
I don't exclusively belong to earth, water, fire, or
air.
I am not of the invisible-ineffable, nor of the dust--
I am not a
process or a being.
I am not of this world or the next, and
deserve
neither eternal reward nor eternal punishment.
I am
not of Adam or Eve,
not of the original Garden nor the final
one.
My home has no address; my tracks leave no trace.
I am neither body
nor soul--What can I say?
I belong to the Self of the Beloved.
I have
laid all "twos" aside:
this world and that world are one.
I search for
One, I recognize One,
I see One clearly, and I call the name of the
One.
That unnameable One, the breath of the breath,
is the
first and last, the outside and the inside.
I identify no one except by "O
That... O This!"
I am drunk on the cup of Love:
here-now and
everywhere-all-time have vanished.
I can't handle any business except
celebration.
If I spend an instant without you,
that instant makes my
whole life seem worthless.
If I can win one moment with you,
I will crush
both worlds under my feet
as I dance in joy forever.
My Beloved
Shams-i-Tabriz, I am living permanently
intoxicated:
I have no more
stories to tell except ones about drunks and
parties.
Jelaluddin Rumi, "The Diwan of
Shams-i-Tabriz" based on literal translation of number 31 in "Selected Poems",
R.A. Nicholson (1898, pp.124-127), by Saadi Shakur Chisti (Neil Douglas-Klotz),
in "Desert Wisdom", pp.173, Harper Collins: New York (1995)
Who was Rumi?
Written by W.D. Adkins
Rumi (1207-1273) was born in Balkh, now part of Afghanistan, but in those years a part of the Persian Empire. In 1215, when a child, his family whisked him off to Turkey, in flight from Mongol armies that had invaded their home region. The poet's new home—in those days—was called Roman Anatolia, thus inspiring the young mystic singer's chosen name, Rumi.
In some respects, perhaps, Rumi followed in the footsteps of his father, Bahauddin (Light of the Faith) Walad, a mystic too, but also a jurist and a theologian. Upon this elder's death, Rumi became a sheikh, instructing a learning community of dervishes. Such dervishes were much given to ecstatic experiences, mind-states in which they attained what they believed to be absolute personal union with God, a concept that remains heretical in many Islamic and Christian circles.
Life for the young Rumi was typical for religious scholars in his time, and consisted of helping the poor, spending hours in focused meditation, and teaching the rudiments of mystical spirituality to aspiring students.
But in 1244, a wandering dervish, the legendary mystic, Shams of Tabriz, entered Rumi's never-to-be-the-same existence. Shams, it is said, had crossed and re-crossed the Persian Empire seeking Allah's help in the finding a friend who might be able to "endure" his companionship.
After traveling afar a voice came to Shams in a vision asking him what he was willing to give up in return if he were granted the companionship of such a friend. "My head," he replied.
The voice sent him thereafter to the town where Rumi resided. The two men united, the legends tell, after it was clear to each that neither would cease their journeying toward the divine by assuming it found in its entirety. One taste of the divine seemed, for most mystics, sufficient. But for both Rumi and Shams, "the way was always unfolding."
They became inseparable.
Coleman Barks, translator (with ineffable grace) of the great Persian poet's works, writes:
"Their Friendship is one of the mysteries. They spent months together without any human needs, transported into a region of pure conversation."
This relationship, according to Barks, "caused difficulties in the religious community" Other men, to whom Rumi had been close, felt neglected. In the midst of such controversies, Shams suddenly disappeared, leaving as unexpectedly as he'd arrived.
Following this first departure, it is believed, Rumi's transformation into an artist- mystic began. He sang with gusto, danced in the realm of the spirits, and began to write poems that would last through the centuries ahead, inspiring not only his Persian countrymen, but men and women in faraway lands who generally described themselves as dumb-struck with awe at the insight and beauty his words conveyed.
But Rumi missed Shams terribly. He discovered that his friend had gone to Damacus, and begged that he return. When they became reunited for a second time, the legends say, they fell at each other's feet so that "no one knew who was lover and who the beloved." Though both men were married (Shams married a young girl who'd been sheltered in Rumi's home) their relationship became so intense with its celebrations of mystic communication-- that jealousies—as once before—erupted.
One night—in their room—on December 5, 1248, as they embraced with communicative fervor, Shams went to the back door where he'd heard a knock. He never returned to that room where his beloved waited, and, tragically, was never seen again.
It is believed that Shams was murdered by a jealous rival. Rumi, overcome by intense grief, went searching in Syria for his friend. His entire world, it seemed, had disappeared with his great love. In Damacus, however, he came to a realization that became encapsulated in a single verse. Readers who have lost their lovers in other circumstances may well-understand what Rumi meant when he said:
Why should I seek? I am the same as he.
His essence speaks through me.
I have been looking for myself.
Thus did the union of these two men take place. Translator Barks calls the illumination Rumi experienced in Damacus fana , or "annihilation in the Friend." In the wake of this annihilation, Rumi called a collection of his many poems The Works of Shams of Tabriz.
A second great love entered Rumi's life, a goldsmith, Saladin Zarkub. Rumi then addressed his poetry to this man with a tender intensity.
But Saladin died too and Rumi took a third lover, Husam, claiming that he understood the "secret order" of the Mathnawi which Rumi's translator calls "that great work that shifts so fantastically from theory to folklore, to jokes, to ecstatic poetry." All six volumes of that work were dedicated to Husam, with whom he lived until December 17, 1273. It was on that day that Rumi passed into the eternal realms.
You can find more information
on Rumi and more of his poems here
Heart-Ravisher
That thieving Heart-ravisher gave me a
kiss and went!
What would have happened if instead of one He had
given me
six or seven?
Every lip He kisses bears its marks: It
splits and
cracks from His lips' sweetness.
Another
mark is that mad desire for the lip of
the Water of Life makes Love stir up a
thousand fires and furnaces every
instant.
Still
another mark is that the body, like the
heart, runs after that kiss with
haste and speed.
It becomes slender and delicate like the
Friend's
lips--how marvellous! Slenderness from the fire of a boundless
Beloved!
-- Ghazal (Ode) 419 Translation by
William C. Chittick "The Sufi Path of Love" SUNY Press, Albany,
1983
Come
"Come!
Come again!
Whoever, whatever you may be, come!
Heathen, idolatrous or
fire worshipper, come!
Even if you deny your oaths a hundred times,
come!
Our door is the door of hope, come! Come like you are!"
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