Tuesday, June 21, 2016
Rumi––What Remains?––tr. Andrew Harvey
‘What Remains But Drowning?’
Rumi
Love does not live in science and learning
Or in any careful order of pages and letters.
Whatever people chatter about
Is not the Way of Lovers.
The branches of Love are in pre-eternity
Its roots in the post-eternal.
This is a Tree that does not exist
On any supports of heaven or earth.
We have dethroned reason and imprisoned desire,
For the majesty of Divine Love
Cannot live with such fools and their habits.
So long as you hunger after anything,
What you long for will be an idol.
When Love decides to love you back
You will no longer exist.
All sailors totter on planks of fear and hope—
But when “planks” and “sailor” have vanished,
What remains but drowning?
Shams of Tabriz, you are sea and pearl;
The mystery of your being
Is the secret of the Creator.
My Soul, the first time I saw you
My soul heard wonders from your soul.
And when my heart drank water from your fountain
It drowned in you and the river swept me away.
translated by Andrew Harvey
from "Diamond Cutters" ––forthcoming anthology
(image from internet)
