O Cupbearer, O Cupbearer, today You and I exist here
and have fallen into deep water.
Let’s find out who knows how to swim. Continue reading “Birds Don’t Have to Worry (11/3/2024)”
O Cupbearer, O Cupbearer, today You and I exist here
and have fallen into deep water.
Let’s find out who knows how to swim. Continue reading “Birds Don’t Have to Worry (11/3/2024)”
At night, I turn around the city like wind.
running like water.
How can sleep overcome the one
who walks around the city in darkness?
The mind is the one who wants to have everything in order.
Don’t ask for reason or manners from the drunk.
The Rubaiyat of Rumi, The Ergin Translations, Volume 3, Rubai 1192, page 142.
At the time of evening prayers,
everyone lights their candle and sets their table.
Yet, I put the Beloved’s image in front of me.
I cry and yell with sorrow and longing. Continue reading “Isn’t That True or False? (6/16/2024)”
As Hodja is my witness,
I swear I will not make any vows again.
The glass of the vow is broken
as soon as I drink Love’s wine.
I swear to Your peerless beauty,
Your wine which defeats and ruins lions.
I won’t even get close to repentance.
I swear to Your sweet lips,
to Your heart which knows the secrets,
I am neither fond of this world
nor obliged to colors, to red and yellow.
I swear to Your sun-like face
and to the true value of Your words
that I am a thousand years
beyond the hot and cold of this world.
I swear to Your mind
which resembles a dark chestnut horse,
Your insignia which offers Soul,
that no one knows what kind of man I am
except You.
I swear to the blessedness of Your morning
and the uproar which comes after morning wine
that I will roll up the sky before I go.
O immortal Sultan, tell the cupbearer
that if someone comes to the assembly with a sour face,
he should serve him the sedimented wine of my sorrow.
That way, duality will disappear.
So will the difference between old and new.
Because at the sacred place of drinking,
I am separated from the crowd.
I am all by myself.
The cupbearer should offer so much wine
that that person becomes drunk, becomes a lover.
That way, he won’t be bothered
by either the echo of my voice or my cool reception.
When he becomes like that,
neither self nor envy will remain within him.
He will come to my playground pure and clean.
He will fly outside of time.
He will free himself from bait and trap.
He will turn himself into a witness
at this gambling place, without quarrel.
He will play with a clean heart like Venus.
He will submit himself to fate like dice,
saying neither, “I won,” nor “I lost.”
I will remain silent from now on.
I am neither nightingale nor parrot.
I am sugar.
I am a rose sapling.
Divan-i Kebir, Volume 22, Ghazal 24, verses 216-228, pages 51-53.
Since I am the slave of the Sun,
I should talk only about the Sun.
I am not the night and don’t worship the night.
Why should I talk about dreams? Continue reading “Don’t Make Me Talk with You through that Curtain (1/28/2024)”
You won’t taste ecstasy as long as you are sober.
You won’t know the soul if you stay in your body.
You will never reach the Truth
if you are not annihilated
like fire and water mixed together
on the way to the Beloved’s Love.
Rubailer (2016), Rubai 2, page 450.
The Rubaiyat of Rumi, The Ergin Translations (ApprxPubSpring2024), Rubai 1083, Volume 3.
If the pain in my heart were reflected outside,
every particle’s face would be darkened by sorrow.
If it found the way to my Essence,
that drunkenness, that agitation
would turn every drop into an ocean.
Rubailer (2016), Rubai 2, page 473.
The Rubaiyat of Rumi, The Ergin Translations (apprx.pub.fall2023), Rubai 1013, Vol.3
The Beloved is holding my harness,
pulling me like a camel again.
His business is to pull the one who chooses to be pulled.
Mine is to carry the load. Continue reading “My Patience Will Win (4/23/2023)”
O my heart-catching, life-taking Beauty
whose face is more beautiful than the moon,
since You have become my friend,
the light of my heart has burst out of my mouth flame after flame. Continue reading “Paradise (3/5/2023)”
In order to hear the greetings of the heart,
I knocked on its door one night.
The glitter of that moonlight reflected on the eye and heart of the road.
After that, the brilliance sparkled endlessly. Continue reading “Greetings of the Heart (1/22/2023)”