Tuesday 26 April 2011

I have come so that...by RUMI

I have come so that,
Tugging your ear,
I may draw you to me,
unheart and unself you,
plant you in my heart and soul.

Rosebush,
I have come a sweet springtide unto you,
to seize you very gently in my embrace and squeeze you.

I have come to adorn you in this worldly abode,
to convey you above the skies like lovers' prayers.

I have come because you stole a kiss from an idol fair;
give it  back with a glad heart, master,
for I will seize you back.

What is a mere rose?
You are the All,
you are the speaker of  the command "Say" .
If no one else knows you, since you are I, I know you.

You are my soul and spirit,
you are my Fatiha-chanter ,
become altogether the Fatiha,
so that I may chant you in my heart.

You are my quarry and game,
though you have sprung from the snare;
return to the snare, and if you will not, I will drive you.

The lion said to me, "You are a wonderous deer; be gone!
Why do you run in my wake so swiftly?
I will tear you to pieces."

Accept my blow, and advance like a hero's shield; 
give your ear to naught but the bowstring,
that I may bend you like a bow.

So many thousand stages there are from earth's bounds to man;
I have brought you from city to city,
I will not leave you by the roadside.

Say nothing, froth not, do not raise the lid of the cauldron; 
simmer well, and be patient, for I am cooking you. 

No, for you are a lion's whelp hidden in a deer's body:
I will  cause you suddenly to transcend the deer's veil.

You are my ball, and you run in the curved mallet of my decree;
though I am making you to run, I am still running in your track.

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

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