All friends have vanished. Like fleeting thoughts they scattered and left me only with the thought of my Beloved.
Now alone with every breath I call the only Friend of the forsaken.
I was taken by the stream of love I tasted the fruit of love's tree,
surrounded with such tenderness, such sweetness I even had to chase the wasps away!
I was the doorkeeper at the gate of my Beloved.
She left, and now, bewildered I don't know which way to turn.
~ Rumi (The Only Friend ) Ghazal 1596 Translation by Azima Melita Kolin and Maryam Mafi "Rumi: Hidden Music" HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2001 Art by Laura Majcan |
All my friends
ReplyDeletedeparted like dreams
left alone
I called upon
one friend
to become
my entire dream
This is the one
who soothes my heart
with endless
tenderness and love
the one who
one hour bestows
inner peace
and the next
the nectar of life
this dream too
as it arrives
i come alive and
as it departs
i'm helpless again
~ Rumi
-Translation by Nader Khalili
"Rumi, Fountain of Fire"
Cal-Earth Press, 1991