Spring is here, friends. Let’s stay in the garden And be guests to the strangers of the green.....by Rumi

Spring is here, friends.
Let’s stay in the garden
And be guests to the strangers of the green.

We’ll fly from one flower to the other,
Like bees making the six corners
Of this earth’s hives prosperous.

An envoy came from this fortress
And said, “Don’t beat the drum secretly.
With our yells, we would tear down the place
Where that Love’s drum is beating.”

Hear that voice which comes from the sky,
“Rise, all insane ones.
I sacrifice my Soul to the insane.
Let’s scatter our Soul today.”

Let’s break all the chains.
Every one of us is a blacksmith.
Let’s go to the fireplace where the pincers are.

Let’s fan the flame of the Heart’s fire
Like the furnace of blacksmiths.
So we can have iron Hearts
Under our control with breath.

We’ll put fire in this universe,
Incite riots in the sky,
Make his sober, resisting mind
Turn around, become dizzy like ours.

We are like a ball, without hands and feet,
Sometimes at the end
And sometimes at the beginning of the square.

Who told you we could do what we want?
Who told you we are independent?

No, no. We are like a club
In the hand of the Beloved 
We send hundreds of thousands of balls
To His feet.

Let’s be silent. Silence is made
With some material like craziness.

His mind is such a fire
That we hide this fire 
by wrapping it in cotton.

~ Rumi 
Translation by Nevit O. Ergin
“Divan-i Kebir” — Meter 1
Walla Walla, Washington: Current, 1995.
Art by Mary Leslie