Reading Rumi

I wonder if your eyes are sleepy or evasive.

No, I swear, you are trying to deceive God.

 

You close your eyes like a merchant

who reaches his gold once he falls asleep.

 

You have extended a chain, setting up endless traps.

You tightly restrain some, while you loosen the bondage of others.

 

As a good deed, you kill your innocent lovers

and pray in front of your martyrs’ graves.

 

Sometimes, like a cupbearer, you take the mind away from the head.

Sometimes, like a musician, you fill that head with melodies.

 

You play the ney of separation.

You play Iraq’s ney, making Buselik similar to Hicaz.*

 

You make the hearts and souls of poor ones

and the wounded hearts of captive ones

treasures of supplication

just with the alms of your beauty.

 

You tear the curtain of the firmament.

You are coy with the coyness of the Sultan.

You live with the great splendor of Eyaz,,**

stealing the crowns of sultans.

 

You are my love.

Does Love have any shape or form?

You dress in this shape. You are just joking.

 

You are an endless treasure.

No sultan’s seal could be put on such a treasure.

Even if a seal were put on one side,

you would quickly cut through it.

 

Submerge into this wealth and be silent.

How long will you be screaming,

clinging to hope and greed

while you sit next to this treasure?

*Iraq/ Buselik/ Hicaz  Tunes of Near Eastern music.

**Eyaz  The name of the slave of Gazne’s Mahmut, used symbolically to mean auspicious.

Divan-i Kebir, Volume 21, Ghazal 114, verses 1236-1246, pages 253-254.