May it be delightful my house;
From my head may it be delightful;
To my feet may it be delightful;
Where I lie may it be delightful;
All above me may it be delightful;
All around me may it be delightful.
poetry
from The Sunrise Ruby by Rumi
Keep knocking, and the joy inside
will eventually open a window
and look out to see who’s there.
translated by Coleman Barks & John Moyne
Where Everything Is Music by Rumi
Don’t worry about saving these songs!
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn’t matter.
We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.
The strumming and the flute notes
rise into the atmosphere,
and even if the world’s harp
should burn up, there will still be
hidden instruments playing.
So the candle flickers and goes out.
We have a piece of flint, and a spark.
This singing art is sea foam.
The graceful movements come from a pearl
somewhere on the ocean floor.
Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge
of driftwood along the beach, wanting!
They derive
from a slow and powerful root
that we can’t see.
Stop the words now.
Open the window in the center of your chest,
and let the spirits fly in and out.
translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne
from Music Master by Rumi
We are the mirror as well as the face in it.
We are tasting the taste this minute
of eternity. We are pain
and what cures pain, both. We are
the sweet cold water and the jar that pours.
I want to hold you close like a lute,
so we can cry out with loving.
You would rather throw stones at a mirror?
I am your mirror, and here are the stones.
translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne
from Bouyancy by Rumi
To praise is to praise
how one surrenders
to the emptiness.
To praise the sun is to praise your own eyes.
Praise, the ocean. What we say, a little ship.
So the sea-journey goes on, and who knows where!
Just to be held by the ocean is the best luck
we could have. It’s a total waking up!
translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne
untitled poem by Rumi
Listen to presences inside poems,
Let them take you where they will.
Follow those private hints,
and never leave the premises.
translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne
from Each Note by Rumi
God picks up the reed-flute world and blows.
Each note is a need coming through one of us,
a passion, a longing-pain.
Remember the lips
where the wind-breath originated,
and let your note be clear.
Don’t try to end it.
Be your note.
I’ll show you how it’s enough.
Go up on the roof at night
in this city of the soul.
Let everyone climb on their roofs
and sing their notes.
Sing loud!
translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne
from Leftovers In The Cup by Ghalib
I don’t see why the so-called elite people are so proud
When the ropes of custom that tie them down are clear enough.
It’s hard for me to distinguish sacrifice from hypocrisy,
When the greed for reward in pious actions is obvious enough.
Desert by Cevat Çapan
Whenever
I sit at a table
to write something to you
I think of the tightrope performers
of my childhood and
all of a sudden
the pen in my hand
gets longer and longer
like that balance stick
and I soon
unlike that masterful tightrope performer
more like an inexperienced clown
fall down into the void
and start jumping
in the bouncing net of dreams.
Then
with the laughter
of my invisible spectators
echoing in my ears
I try to crawl
in a dry sea of ears.
translated by Zeynep Bağcı & Suat Karantay
The Sun by Georg Trakl
Each day the gold sun comes over the hill.
The woods are beautiful, also the dark animals,
Also man; hunter or farmer.
The fish rises with a red body in the green pond.
Under the arch of heaven
The fisherman travels smoothly in his blue skiff.
The grain, the cluster of grapes, ripen slowly.
When the still day comes to an end,
Both evil and good have been prepared.
When the night has come,
Easily the pilgrim lifts his heavy eyelids;
The sun breaks from gloomy ravines.
translated by Robert Bly
Leonard Durso 