Tuesday 11 December 2007

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Maulana Galaluddine Rumi: Advice doesn't help lovers...

  • Tuesday 11 December 2007
  • Fouad GM
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  • Advice doesn't help lovers!
    They're not the kind of mountain stream
    you can build a dam across.

    An intellectual doesn't know
    what the drunk is feeling!

    Don't try to figure
    what those lost inside love
    will do next!

    Someone in charge would give up all his power,
    if he caught one whiff of the wine-musk
    from the room where the lovers
    are doing who-knows-what!

    One of them tries to dig a hole through a mountain.
    One flees from academic honors.
    One laughs at famous mustaches!

    Life freezes if it doesn't get a taste
    of this almond cake.
    The stars come up spinning
    every night, bewildered in love.
    They'd grow tired
    with that revolving, if they weren't.
    They'd say,
    "How long do we have to do this!"

    God picks up the reed-flute world and blows.
    Each note is a need coming through one of us,
    a passion, a longing-pain.
    Remember the lips
    where the wind-breath originated,
    and let your note be clear.
    Don't try to end it.
    Be your note.
    I'll show you how it's enough.

    Go up on the roof at night
    in this city of the soul.

    Let everyone climb on their roofs
    and sing their notes!

    Sing loud!


    A fresco portrait of Maulana Galaluddine Rumi at the Sama'akhaneh of the Tekiyeh Mawlawiya (Suyufiya Street, Cairo).Photo taken by myself, 30 Ramadan / 12 October 2007.

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