Rumi

Who makes these changes? by Rumi

/ zdunno03 / 3 Comments

Who makes these changes?
I shoot an arrow right.
It lands left.
I ride after a deer and find myself
chased by a hog.
I plot to get what I want
and end up in prison.
I dig pits to trap others
and fall in.

I should be suspicious
of what I want.

translated by Coleman Barks

from Night and Sleep by Rumi

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The spirit sees astounding beings, turtles turned to men,
Men turned to angels, when sleep erases the banal.

I think one could say the spirit goes back to its old home;
It no longer remembers where it lives, and loses its fatigue.

It carries around in life so many griefs and loads
And trembles under their weight; they are gone, it is all well.

translated by Robert Bly

The Jar with the Dry Rim by Rumi

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The mind is an ocean. . .and so many worlds
Are rolling there, mysterious, dimly seen!
And our bodies? Our body is a cup, floating
On the ocean; soon it will fill, and sink. . .
Not even one bubble will show where it went down.

The spirit is so near that you can’t see it!
But reach for it. . .Don’t be a jar
Full of water, whose rim is always dry.
Don’t be the rider who gallops all night
And never sees the horse that is beneath him.

translated by Robert Bly

on dancing from Rumi

/ zdunno03 / 1 Comment

Dance, when you’re broken open.
Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off.
Dance in the middle of the fighting.
Dance in your blood.
Dance, when you’re perfectly free.

translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne

Where Everything Is Music by Rumi

/ zdunno03 / 3 Comments

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