I AM NOT...BY RUMI

O Dear! What can I do?
I have lost my identity!

I am not a Christian, Jew, pagan, or Muslim.
I am neither an Easterner nor a Westerner,
neither a land nor a sea person.

Nature can't fully account for me,
nor can the whirling cosmos.
I don't exclusively belong to earth, water, fire, or air.
I am not of the invisible-ineffable, nor of the dust--
I am not a process or a being.

I am not of this world or the next, and deserve
neither eternal reward nor eternal punishment.
I am not of Adam or Eve,
not of the original Garden nor the final one.

My home has no address; my tracks leave no trace.
I am neither body nor soul--What can I say?
I belong to the Self of the Beloved.

I have laid all "twos" aside:
this world and that world are one.
I search for One, I recognize One,
I see One clearly, and I call the name of the One.

That unnameable One, the breath of the breath,
is the first and last, the outside and the inside.
I identify no one except by "O That... O This!"

I am drunk on the cup of Love:
here-now and everywhere-all-time have vanished.
I can't handle any business except celebration.

If I spend an instant without you,
that instant makes my whole life seem worthless.
If I can win one moment with you,
I will crush both worlds under my feet
as I dance in joy forever.

My Beloved O,My Beloved
I am living permanently intoxicated:
I have no more stories to tell
except ones about drunks and parties.

~ Rumi 

Jelaluddin Rumi, "The Diwan of Shams-i-Tabriz" based on literal translation of number 31 in "Selected Poems", R.A. Nicholson (1898, pp.124-127), by Saadi Shakur Chisti (Neil Douglas-Klotz), in "Desert Wisdom", pp.173, Harper Collins: New York (1995)