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Ghazal 1628
When I see you and how you are,
I close my eyes to the other.
For your Solomon’s seal I become wax
throughout my body. I wait to be light.
I give up opinions on all matters.
I become the reed flute for your breath.
You were inside my hand.
I kept reaching around for something.
I was inside your hand, but I kept asking questions
of those who know very little.
I must have been incredibly simple or drunk or insane
to sneak into my own house and steal money,
to climb over the fence and take my own vegetables.
But no more. I’ve gotten free of that ignorant fist
that was pinching and twisting my secret self.
The universe and the light of the stars come through me.
I am the crescent moon put up
over the gate to the festival.
Version by Coleman Barks,
"These Branching Moments"
Copper Beech Press, 1988
I closed my eyes to creation when I beheld his beauty, I
became intoxicated with his beauty and bestowed my soul.
For the sake of Solomon’s seal I became wax in all my
body, and in order to become illumined I rubbed my wax.
I saw his opinion and cast away my own twisted opinion;
I became his reed pipe and likewise lamented on his lip.
He was in my hand, and blindly I groped for him with my
hand; I was in his hand, and yet I inquired of those who were
misinformed.
I must have been either a simpleton or drunk or mad that
fearfully I was stealing from my own gold.
Life a thief I crept through a crack in the wall into my own
vine, like a thief I gathered jasmine from my own garden.
Enough, do not twist my secret upon your fingertips, for
I have twisted off out of your twisted fist.
Shams-e Tabriz, from whom comes the light of moon and
stars – though I am grieving with sorrow for him, I am like the
crescent of the festival.
"Mystical Poems of Rumi 2"
Translation by A. J. Arberry
The University of Chicago Press, 1991
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