On the day of death"

On that final day
When my casket moves along
Do not think my soul
will stay in this world.

Do not weep for me, crying, Tragedy, tragedy.
You will only fall into the snares of delusion –
Now that's a tragedy!

When you see my lifeless body go by
Do not cry out, Gone, gone.
It is my moment of union.
It is when I come upon
the eternal embrace of my Beloved.

As I am lowered into the ground
Do not say, Farewell, farewell.
For the grave is but a veil
covering the splendor of Paradise.

Having seen the fall
Consider the rise.
What harm ever came to the setting Sun or Moon?

What appears to you as a setting
is for me a rising.
What appears to you as a prison
is for my soul an endless garden.

Every seed that enters the earth will grow.
Should it be any different with a human seed?
Every bucket that is lowered into a well comes up full.
Should I complain when instead of water
I pull up Joseph himself?

Do not look for your words here,
look for them over there.
Sing to me in the silence of your heart
and I will rise up
to hear your triumphant song.

-- Jonathan Star
"Rumi - In the Arms of the Beloved"
Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, New York 1997

From Box To Box

Don't weep.
The joy that has gone
will come `round again in another form –
Have no doubt about this!

A child's first joy
comes from its mother's milk;
After the child is weaned
his joy comes from drinking sweet wine.

This supreme joy has no resting place -
It enters one form then another,
from box to box – an eternal movement
between heaven and earth.

Here it comes, pouring down from the sky,
seeping into the earth,
and rising up again as a bed of roses.

Now it is water, now a plate of rice,
Now the swaying trees, now a horse and rider.
It lies within these forms for awhile
then bursts forth to become something new.

Isn't this like our dreams? –
The body sleeps
while the soul moves on
to take other forms.
You say,
I dreamt I was a cypress, a bed of tulips,
the blossoms of roses and jasmines.

Then the soul returns, and you wake up –
the cypress is gone, the roses are gone.

I tell you truly,
everything you now see
will vanish like a dream.

I do not mean to trouble you, O friend,
with words so bold as these.
Perhaps you will only listen to God.
He speaks more gently than I.

But how will you ever hear Him with
All that blathering going on? –
Everyone is speaking about golden bread
yet no one has ever tasted it!

O my soul, where can I find rest
but in the shimmering love of his heart?
Where can I see the pure light of the Sun
but in the eyes of my own Shams-e Tabriz?

-- Version by Jonathan Star
"A Garden Beyond Paradise: The Mystical Poetry of Rumi"
Bantam Books, 1992