"Maybe They're Shy"

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Maybe They're Shy

Now the nightbirds will be singing
of the way we love each other.
Why should they sing about flowers
when they've seen us in the garden?

Maybe they're shy. They can't look at the face,
so they describe feet.
If they keep dividing love into pieces,
they'll disappear altogether. We must be gentle
and explain it to them.

Think of a mountain so huge the Caucasus Range
is a tiny speck. Normal mountains
run toward her when she calls.
They listen in their cave-ears and echo back.
They turn upsidedown when they get close,
they're so excited.

No more words. In the name of this place we
drink in with our breathing, stay quiet like a flower.
So the nightbirds will start singing.

-- Ghazal (Ode) 944
Version by Coleman Barks
"Open Secret,"
Threshold Books, 1984

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"Maybe They're Shy"

"This Useless Heart"

~

Sunlight offers Ghazal (Ode) 2647, in a version by Kabir
Helminski, and in translation by A.J. Arberry:

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"This Useless Heart"

Heart, since you embraced the mysteries,
you have become useless for anything else.
Go mad, don't stay sane.
People meditate to get something.
All you do is give.
Crazy Majnun's priorities are now yours, too.

If you want to be respectable,
why do you go downtown drunk?
It's no good just sitting in some corner,
once you've made friends with the dissolute of this path.

Go back to the desert;
leave this shabby town.
There's the smell of a tavern
somewhere in this neighborhood,
and it's already got you high.

Now follow it. Go to Qaf Mountain like the Simurgh,*
leave these owls and herons.
Go into the thicket of Reality like a lion.
Why linger with hyenas and dogs?
Don't go after the scent of Joseph's shirt,
you are already mourning his death like Jacob, his father.

-- Version by Kabir Helminski
"Love is a Stranger"
Threshold Books, 1993

*"The Simurgh" -- the phoenix, which dwells upon Mount Qaf. In sufi
symbolism, the phoenix often symbolizes the spirit of the saint, or
the saint himself, while Mount Qaf is his station in God's presence.
-- Sunlight footnote from Chittick's "The Sufi Path of Love"

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Heart, since you have become understanding of the mysteries,
you have become useless for all other employments.
Be still mad and insane; why have you come to your senses
and recovered your wits?
Meditation is all for the sake of acquiring; you have become
entirely giving.
Preserve that same order of Majnun, for you have become in-
different to all orderings.
If you desire to be veiled and prudent, why did you go about
drunk in the market?
To sit in a corner yields you no profit once you have become
the friend of the dissolutes of this path.
Go forth into the desert, that same desert where you were; you
have wandered long enough in these ruins.
There is a tavern in your neighborhood, from the scent of its
wine you have become intoxicated.
Seize this scent and go to the tavern, for you have become
nimble-paced as that scent.
Go to the mountain of the Qaf like the Simorg; why have you
become the friend of owl and heron?
Go like a lion into the thicket of reality; why have you become
the friend of the fox and the hyena?
Go not after the scent of the shirt of Joseph, for like Jacob, you
are in mourning.

-- Translation by A.J. Arberry
"Mystical Poems of Rumi 1"
University of Chicago Press, 1995

The media:
http://tinyurl.com/2n4qhk

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"This Useless Heart"

"Love and reputation"

~

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Love and reputation, brother,
are not in harmony:
don't stand at the door of reputation, if you are a lover.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

`Eshq o nâmus ay berâdar râst nist
bar dar-e nâmus ay `âsheq mah-'ist

-- Mathnawi VI: 612
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance"
Threshold Books, 1996
(Persian transliteration courtesy of Yahyá Monastra)

The media:

http://tinyurl.com/3ayaaq

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"Love and reputation"

"A fire which no water can extinguish"

~

Here, Sunlight presents Ghazal (Ode) 310, in versions by Star,
Barks, and Cowan, and in translation by A.J. Arberry:

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Here He comes
A moon whose light the sky never saw
even in her dreams,
Crowned with an eternal flame
no flood can hope to quench.

His cup, long out of reach, now spills over,
filling my senses,
desolating my soul.

The saaqi has become my dearest friend.
With each new round she pours,
my blood turns to nectar,
my heart to a holy shrine.
Now I see only Him!
Now I hear His voice alone:

Let my love fill your golden cup
like sunbeams showering the earth.
Let it flow to every corner of your soul.
Let it tear up the gnarled roots of regret
and nourish the tender seeds of hope.

When my heart saw the ocean of His love
it jumped in and yelled,
Find me if you can!

O, where can I look for my missing heart?
Where, but the face of Shams-e Tabriz?

He is the Sun
In whose track
Every heart must follow.

-- Version by Jonathan Star
"Rumi - In the Arms of the Beloved"
Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, New York 1997

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The moon has come back out,
the other moon, that was never above us,
or seen in dreams, the moon that brings fire
and pours wine, the host that cooks us
to tenderness.

Our eyes look at the prepared sight
and say, Well done. Bravo!

Then we remember the ocean
and leap out of our personalities into that.
Try to find us!

The sun goes down,
with a line of clouds running to catch up.

-- Version by Coleman Barks
"These Branching Moments"
Copper Beech Press, 1988

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That moon, undreamt even by sky, returns
Bringing a fire no water can quench.

The temple of my body and my soul
Are made drunken and desolate by his love.

When the tavern-keeper became my soul-mate
My blood turned to wine, my heart to kebab.

When the eye is consumed by thought of him
A voice arrives: Well done, O Flagon. Brave, wine!

Loves fingers drag up, root and stem,
Every flower where Love's rays fall.

When my heart noticed Love's sea, suddenly
It escaped me and leapt in, crying, "Save me!"

Tabriz's glory, the face of the Wild One is
The Sun whose track all cloudy hearts follow.

-- Version by James Cowan
"Rumi's Divan of Shems of Tabriz, Selected Odes"
Element Books Limited 1997

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That moon has returned, whose like the sky never saw even in
dreams; he has brought a fire which no water can extinguish.
Behold the body's tenement, and behold my soul -- Love's cup
has intoxicated the one and ruined the other.
When the master of the tavern became my heart's companion,
my blood turned to wine out of love, my heart to roast.
When the eye is filled with his image, a voice proclaims,
"Well done, goblet, and bravo, wine!"
My heart suddenly descried the ocean of Love; it leaped away
from me, saying, "Come, find me now!"
The sun of the countenance of Shams-i Din, Pride of Tabriz
-- in its track like clouds all hearts are running.

-- Translation by A. J. Arberry
"Mystical Poems of Rumi 1"
The University of Chicago Press, 1968

The media:

http://tinyurl.com/3y6hhg

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"A fire which no water can extinguish"

"Every success depends on focusing the heart"

~

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Come, seek, for search is the foundation of fortune:
every success depends on focusing the heart.
Unconcerned with the business of the world,
keep saying with all your soul, "Coo, Coo," like the dove.
Consider this well, O you whom worldliness veils:
God has linked our invocation to the promise, "I will answer."*
When weakness is cleared from your heart,
your prayer will reach the glorious Lord.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hin be-ju keh rokn-e dawlat jostan ast
har goshâdi dar del andar-bastan ast
Az hameh-ye kâr-e jahân pardâkhte
ku o ku mi gu be-jân chon fâkhteh
Nik be-negar andarin ay mohtajeb
keh do`â-râ bast Haqq bar "Astajib"*
Harkeh-râ del pâk shod az e`tedâl
ân do`a-'esh mi ravad tâ Zu al-Jalâl

-- Mathnavi III: 2302-2305
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance"
Threshold Books, 1996
Persian transliteration courtesy of Yahyá Monastra

*al-Mu'min, 60

The media:

http://tinyurl.com/3aug6r

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"Every success depends on focusing the heart"