The Essential Rumi

  The phial of perfume is finally unsealed

  And you may sip from out the holy grail

  These assembled elements of delight

  Will launch a new star in the starlit night.

  KINGS AND SLAVES

  (A Tribute to Arabi)

  All kings are only servants to their slaves

  Humans ready to die for Him who saves

  Them from death. Traps are there to serve the bird

  And sons of Adam, captives of the Word

  So lose your hearts to the idea of loss

  The lowest number always wins the toss.

  BEHIND THE VEIL

  My beloved is hidden by that veil

  Try and conjure her face and you will fail

  What your eyes cannot conjure my heart sees

  Her perfume is the scent upon the breeze.

  THE TRANCE

  I fell into a trance

  And was in my beloved’s garden

  I was drunk through dance

  And incoherently begged her pardon

  The flowers of existence

  Had burst in peacock bloom

  But then I woke up sober

  Locked within a room.

  The garden’s gone and there’s

  A pain inside my head

  And though I’m separated from

  The dream, it isn’t dead.

  LAND OF LOVE

  This fairyland of love

  Is a country to cry for

  Getting lost in you

  Is a loss to die for

  I said, “I will make love to you

  Then fade upon the air.”

  She was appalled and said,

  “Don’t you even dare!”

  CATASTROPHES

  Catastrophes, contrivances

  The latest heinous crime

  Are passing shows, the real news

  Is the stillness beyond time.

  AT THE PARTY

  The party was crowded—

  Of our secret love

  I could give you no token.

  They started a game of whispers,

  I put my cheek to yours,

  My heart was broken.

  SOUNDS

  The winds of the deserts

  Set up a wail

  To match the songs

  Of the nightingale

  Each sound was the message

  She sent today

  Echoing over rooftops

  And far away.

  THE PEARL

  Death holds no terror for the one who can

  See beyond this life’s short and fitful span

  The knock of rocks, the churning ocean’s swell

  Do not affect the pearl inside the shell.

  ISSAH AND THE FOOLS

  Issah the healer

  (To him all praise)

  Had the Word from God

  Which was able to raise

  The dead and breathe

  Life into a wraith

  Not to crowd the planet

  But to bring us to faith

  In the living God. But he

  Walked with men who were

  Self-seeking in their depth

  And deeply insincere

  They pressed him for the formula

  They begged him for the word

  The mantra that would raise the dead

  And by Him be heard

  So Issah in his innocence

  Whispered it to those

  Jackals who were present

  When Lazarus arose

  And gave to all of us,

  The doubting human race,

  Faith in the eternal

  Life, faith in Allah’s grace.

  These jackals, jubilating, went

  Through a desert full of stones

  And came across a scattered pile

  Of whitened, sun-bleached bones.

  When one of these self-seekers

  More foolish than the rest

  Thought he’d put the formula

  And Issah to the test.

  He uttered the dreaded word of life

  While facing to the East

  And from the bones there came alive

  A predatory beast,

  Who ate the entire company

  The miracle-maker too

  Now Rumi that’s the story

  But the moral must come through.

  Issah was no magician

  His miracles weren’t magic

  The fools who deny Allah

  Their ends will be farcical, tragic.

  THE WANDERER

  It isn’t aimlessly through streets

  And bazaars that I wander

  It’s for a glimpse of her, my love

  Intoxicated, I squander

  My time like a vagabond

  Weaving idle rings

  Around my lover’s haunts

  And yet consciousness clings

  To that one purpose. I beg

  You, have mercy on me Lord

  A sinful wretch distraught,

  How can broken hearts afford

  To be still? A million souls

  Delved in this ocean’s swell

  Searching in their hearts

  For the pearl inside the shell

  So come, my love, be kind to him

  They call the Maulana of Rome

  Who is but the slave of Shams-e Tabrizi

  A wanderer without a home.

  BUTTERFLY WINGS

  The air is hardly moved

  By butterfly wings that flutter.

  O mortal, leave your prayers and seek

  The one whose name you utter!

  ONLY IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT

  Only in the dead of night

  Will she lift the veil

  The laws of light and modesty

  Inevitably prevail

  In the harsher light of day.

  Did not the burning bush

  Appear to Moses in the night?

  Lover, do not push

  Me into daylight’s brutal glare,

  It’s only in the night

  That lovers who by day are blind

  Attain their radiant sight.

  POUR OUT THE WINE

  Pour out the wine that He alone dispenses

  Enrich my soul by soaking all my senses

  Give it defiance, teach my soul to fly

  Pour one more cup, O Saki, one more sigh

  May coax the wine out from the heart of stone

  Leave him that way who lives by bread—alone.

  For bread is that which makes the body whole

  But leaves unnourished the flowering soul

  Open for me, Saki, the flask divine

  Pour me a measure of celestial wine

  And shut the eye that only evil sees

  And open that which apprehends the breeze

  Let temples and mosques crumble into dust

  I am content to drown in divine lust.

  EVIDENCE

  Once in Hindustan some sages took

  An elephant into a pitch-dark room

  They wanted scientifically to look

  At the ways in which human beings assume

  That they discern the spirit from the clues

  Their senses can pick up and misdirect

  Their judgement, which is how we all abuse

  Our senses and God-given intellect.

  The first man came and with an outstretched hand

  Touched the elephant on his trunk and cried,

  “I’ve got it now, I clearly understand,

  This beast is like a pipe that’s one foot wide.”

  Then the sages brought in the second man

  Who gestured blindly till he felt an ear

  “I know!” he said. “This beast is like a fan

  Floppy and stiff, I think that much is clear.”

  The third fellow to enter touched the leg

  Of the elephant though he could not see

  He leaned back saying, “No, no, no, I
beg

  To differ from my friends, obviously

  The beast is nothing but a pole.”

  The fourth man came and grabbed the beast’s tail

  And said, “At last an idea of the whole

  Beast has formed, my instincts never fail.”

  He declared the elephant was a rope.

  So my friends do not count the evidence

  Of hand or eye or ear and ever hope

  That these can lead beyond the realm of sense.

  THE KING AND THE SLAVE GIRL

  There was a king in olden times

  Who ruled this world and half the next

  An amorous individual,

  Today we’d call him oversexed.

  This king went hunting with his men

  And on the road he saw a slave

  Girl who took his fancy so

  He raised a hand and by this gave

  The order to forego the hunt.

  He commanded the girl be brought

  To him. The price her owners asked

  They should be paid. Thus she was bought.

  The king with no care for the girl

  Indulged his lust and had his way

  But that poor child began to fade

  And became haggard day by day.

  The king felt like the man who bought

  An ass and saddle at the fair

  And lost the ass to wild beasts,

  Was left with the saddle, riding air.

  The king called all his doctors to

  Attend to the girl and find a cure.

  But despite all their efforts she

  Withered as the moon before

  The darkening nights till she became

  As thin as the breadth of a hair.

  The proud physicians had not called

  On God. The king was in despair

  And went barefoot and humble to

  The mosque. He touched the floor in prayer

  And soaked the mat in royal tears

  He prayed and begged that God would spare

  The girl he had possessed in lust.

  The king collapsed into a faint

  And in that fit a vision came

  A man would arrive and acquaint

  The king and his court physicians

  With the secret of the cure

  And sure enough when he awoke

  The first person whom he saw

  Was that promised man of dreams

  Sent to him in token of

  God’s answer to his heartfelt plea

  God’s return for his professed love.

  The king took him into the harem

  Took him to where the sick girl lay

  The physician examined her

  And said, “These medicines that they,

  Your court physicians, ministered,

  And all the cures that they have tried

  Have made the girl’s condition worse

  The poor patient might have died.

  They gave her draughts to heal her flesh

  Using all their craft and art

  This sickening is not of the flesh

  She’s dying of a broken heart.”

  The illness of the heart is ever

  Far worse than the body’s pain

  To cure its painful consequence

  The patient must be born again

  Into the love beyond preferring.

  This love transcendent has no name

  It renders all definition

  Inadequate, sterile, lame.

  All the pens that pen the verses

  Poets singing songs of praise

  To this mysterious emotion

  Are like men who try to gaze

  Straight into the sun at noon

  Blinding their eyes to see its face,

  Instead, they should study shadows

  And so comfortably trace

  Where the sun is and how bright,

  Be satisfied with oblique clues

  We know the spirit by the body

  Suns and shadows interfuse

  Our world. Then that dream physician

  Asked the king if he might see

  The slave girl and extract her story,

  Interview her privately.

  The king agreeing, the good doctor

  Asked the girl where she was born

  And other questions, like a needle

  Probing for the painful thorn

  That was causing her distraction

  The arrow that had torn apart

  The breast of this benighted maiden

  Piercing her bleeding heart.

  He asked her about all her trials

  And the masters she had had

  She gave him the honest answers,

  Her life though so short, was sad

  The doctor probed her to find

  At what point her pulse would race

  And when he named a far-off city

  She was like a deer in chase

  Frightened by the sound of pursuit

  Or like a slave at the command

  Of a strict and cruel master

  The name he’d used was “Samarkand.”

  Now he knew the thing that ailed her

  That destroyed her heart and soul

  He asked her where he lived. She answered,

  “Ghatafar in Sar-e Pol.”

  She told the doctor his professions;

  Goldsmith, jeweler, artisan

  The doctor determined that he

  Would get the king, to find this man

  And bring him thence from Samarkand

  So that the king could execute

  His rival in love. Now he said,

  “This heartache that has grown acute

  Will now become a wish fulfilled.

  Promise me you’ll never say

  The name Samarkand out aloud.”

  And saying thus he went his way.

  The doctor conferred with the king

  Agreed a stratagem and planned

  To send a delegation to fetch

  That goldsmith from Samarkand

  The king sent out his invitation

  Luring him with gifts of gold

  Feeling in his heart that men were

  Cattle to be bought and sold.

  With the embassy that set out

  He sent the best his land could boast

  The goldsmith accepting the gifts was

  Impatient to meet his host.

  Induced away from Samarkand

  Innocent and unsuspecting

  His party finally arrived

  And demanded to see the king.

  The goldsmith made his salutation

  To the king. The doctor gave

  Instructions to the court attendants

  To go and fetch the young girl slave

  Which they did and as was plotted

  The doctor said the king should give

  That poor girl to her lover

  And thus united, let them live

  Together and the healing process

  Would contrive to resurrect

  Her body back to all its beauty.

  Neither lover did suspect

  The king or doctor’s bona fides

  The embers of their love flared up

  Into the flame they had experienced.

  The doctor fed a poisoned cup

  To the goldsmith who, in her arms,

  Withered like a sunburnt grape

  And shrunk and shriveled by the poison

  The victim lost his human shape.

  As he turned ugly, pale and grim

  He wasn’t what he was before

  She couldn’t love this withered thing

  His ugliness said, “Nevermore.”

  He wished now he had gone his own way,

  And never played love’s foolish game

  His love had been a self-deception

  Born in lust and burnt in shame.

  The blood came to his eyes, red rivers

&nbs
p; Flowing down his sallow cheeks

  “I am the fox killed for his fur

  I am that deer the hunter seeks

  For meat and musk. The wall does cast

  A lengthy shadow as the night

  Approaches, but it shortens as

  The sun at noon is at its height.”

  Is what he said before he died

  And was erased from memory

  The slave girl from her pain and pride

  Found release and was set free.

  The puzzle is that Rumi says

  That though mankind may find it odd

  For the murder of this man

  The inspiration came from God.

  For each one kills the thing he loves

  Mortals will not understand

  Prepare themselves for sacrifice

  Or trust their lives into His hand.

  ROOT OF PRIDE

  Intelligence can be the root of pride

  Your subtle thoughts can take you for a ride

  Become a fool, as foolishness is pure

  But not the kind of fool who’s immature

  And makes his dignity a puerile jest.

  Negate your intelligence and invest

  All faith and reason in the loving Friend

  Who is reason’s beginning and its end

  Submit yourself to Him, the Friend’s caress

  Can lead the damned out of their wilderness

  TRUTH AND LIES

  The false draws its sustenance from the true

  The counterfeit coin’s deemed of no value

  Only when you can weigh it in a scale

  Against some real gold. Truth will prevail

  By comparison, which is logic’s rule.

  He who embraces falsehood is a fool.

  THE IRON AND THE FLAME

  Iron draws to itself the fiery breath

  Of dragons which to humans would mean death.

  We living things can only bear the glow

  Of gentle suns. Our endurance is so

  Much the creation of frailty. But then

  The exception to this rule among men

  Is the dervish who like iron glows

  Red in flame under the hammer’s blows.

  LOVE DIVINE

  Afflicted hearts can seek only one cure

  The retreat into love will serve as your

  Introduction to Him who is the Friend

  Before whom souls in supplication bend

  And look beyond the endless space of sky