Rumi, Spiritual Couplets Book 1
Translated by Ali Arsanjani, in Rumi’s Guide for Lovers and Spiritual Seekers,
The sign of love can be seen in sheer helplessness of heart
Love is a sickness to which no other malady compares
You can tell that the lover’s sickness is of a different kind
Do you want to find God’s secrets? Love is your compass.
Some loves are mild, Some starts fickle, some start wild
They may settle right here, somewhere near
Some loves travel miles to unlikely places far from here
But in the end all loves guide you to the Ultimate Love.
When I seek, however much, to use words to describe it
I end up embarrassed for even trying,
when I in speechless awe, encounter love
“Explain away!”, you say? Explanations are helpful
But all they do is mystify, never do they clarify
That’s why I’ll settle only for the clearest of all: Speechless Love
Trying too fast, in effort to write, my pen ended up in
midflight
encountering love and at first sight, it burst apart
Struggling hard to elaborate on this, my intellect sunk
deeper yet in the quicksand of thoughts
for the story of love can only be told by Love.
2 comments:
Rumi speaks to me, almost as if the universe herself speaks. I love Rumi's life, his love of Shams, his whirling in grief, opening a door. It will be wonderful to have a different translation. Thank you for this treasure, this work of love.
Very kind words. Thank you.
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