You make our souls tasty like rose
marmalade. You cause us to fall flat
on the ground like the shadow of
a cypress still growing at its tip.
Rainwater through a mountain forest,
we run after you in different ways.
We live like the verge of tears inside
your eyes. Don’t cry! You trick some
people with gold ropes, tie them up and
leave them. Others you pull near at dawn.
You’re the one within every attraction.
All silence. You are not alone, never
that, but you must be distracted, because
look, you’ve taken the food you were
going to give Jesus out to the stable
and put it down in front of the donkey.
— Ghazal (Ode) 2950
Rumi – Version by Coleman Barks, with Nevit Ergin
“The Glance”
Viking-Penguin, 1999
