Watch death. How does it come back to life?
Look at how the free cypress has become a slave, a servant.
Watch and see how these loose, decayed boxes and coffins
are filled with soul, with Love and knowledge.
That throat and mouth which have been torn in the grave
are now singing like a drunken nightingale.
Watch the Kaaba today.
It is raised and coming to the pilgrims.
For that reason, thousands of caravans are blessed.
That soul who runs away from the needle and enters the bottle
is today offering his soul to the sword of Love.
You have seen so many times how water comes out of rock.
Watch now and see how milk springs from honey.
Look at the unripe grape which becomes sugar thanks to its joy.
Look at all this barren land, how it becomes green.
Keep smiling, O Earth.
You have given birth to such a Caliph!
Because of Him, stones and bricks are moving.
Grief is dead. The mourning time has ended.
You and I will stay well.
Wherever there was crying, now there is laughter.
Such a rose garden has grown, is so adorned
that all of its thorns have been utterly eradicated.
That is the power of the rose’s smell.
Hizir has drunk from the fountain of life
and become eternal.
Our pleasant life would become eternal
even if the body were worn out like an old mantle.
The soul, no doubt, is eternal.
Be silent. Sleep on the sugar-threshing floor,
because words make sugar scatter.
I have been kept silent, but all of the noises of the parrot’s sugarcane
have become lightheaded and are keeping up their exuberance.
Divan-i Kebir, Meter 4, Gazel 41, Verses 2825-2838, Pages 81-82.