september 30

[Rumi's birthday in 1207]

A Trace

You that give new life to this planet,

you that transcend logic, come.

I am only an arrow. Fill your bow with me

and let fly. Because of this love for you,

my bowl has fallen from the roof.

Put down a ladder and collect the pieces.

People ask, Which roof is your roof?

I answer, Wherever the soul came from

and wherever it goes back at night,

my roof is in that direction.

From wherever spring arrives

to heal the ground, from wherever searching rises

in a human being. The looking itself is a trace

of what we are looking for.

But we have been like the man

who sat on his donkey and asked the donkey where to go.

Be quiet now and wait. If may be the ocean one,

the one we want so to move into and become,

it may be that one wants us out here

on land a little longer

going our sundry roads to the shore.

Undressing

Learn the alchemy true human beings know.
The moment you accept what troubles
you've been given, the door will open.

Welcome difficulty, as a familiar comrade.
Joke with torment brought by the Friend.

Sorrows are the rags of old clothes
and jackets that serve to cover,
and then are taken off.

That undressing,
and the naked body underneath,
is the sweetness that comes after grief.

[october 31]