Love Is a Stranger

My girlfriend recently surprised me with a copy of Love is a Stranger translated by Kabir Helminski because she's sweet and enjoys me reading her Rumi. These poems feel different than the Coleman Barks' translations, so let me know if you notice anything or if you think you've found the best Rumi translations. These words of wisdom are so beautiful.


Love Is a Stranger

Heart came on solid footing with breath refined
to warn the best of communities.
Heart placed your head
like a pen on the page of love.

We are joyous pennants in your just wind.
Master, to where do you dance?

Toward the land of liberation,
toward the plain on non-existence.

Master, tell us which non-existence you mean.
The ear of eternity knows the letter of eternity.

Love is a stranger with a strange language,
like an Arab in Persia. I have brought a story;
it is strange, like the one who tells it.
Listen to your servant.

Joseph's face enlightened the well in which he was suspended.
His imprisonment became a palace
with orchards and meadows, a paradise,
a royal hall, and a chamber of sanctity.

Just as you toss a stone into the water,
the water at that very moment parts to receive it.
Just as a cloudy night is dispelled by a clear dawn,
from his humiliation and loss he views the high heaven.

Reason, do not envy my mouth.
God witnesses the blessings.
Though the tree drinks from hidden roots,
we see the display of its branches.
Whatever the earth took from heaven,
it yields up honestly in spring.

Whether you have stolen a bead or a jewel,
whether you have raised a flag or pen,
the night is gone and day has arrived,
and the sleeper shall see what he has dreamed.


Didn't I say?

Didn't I say, "Don't go there; I am your friend.
In this mirage of existence, I am the fountain of life."
Even if your anger takes you a hundred thousand years away,
in the end you will return, for I am your goal.
Didn't I say, "Don't be content with earthly forms;
I am the designer of the intimate chamber of your contentment."
Didn't I say, "I am the sea, and you are a single fish;
don't strand yourself on dry land; I am your clear sea."
Didn't I say, "Don't get caught in the trap like a helpless bird;
I am the power of flight- your feet and your wings."
Didn't I say, "They will waylay you and make you cold;
I am the fire and your warm desire."
Didn't I say, "They will implant their qualities in you
until you forget that the best qualities are here."
Didn't I say, "You do not know from what direction
your affairs are put in order."
I am the Creator beyond directions.
If light is in your heart, find your way home.
If you are of God, know your Benefactor.


A House for the Naked

It's late and it's raining, my friends;
let's go home. let's leave these ruins
we've haunted like owls.
Even though these blonde beauties beckon,
let's go home. All the reasons offered
by the sensible, dull, and sorrowful
can't darken our hearts now;
nor can all this phantom love play,
this imaginary paradise hold us back.
Some see the grain but not the harvest.
Don't ask too many "how's" or "why's."
Let beasts graze.
Come home to the real celebration and music.
Shams has built a house for the naked and the pure.


A New Rule

It is the rule with drunkards to fall upon each other,
to quarrel, become violent, and make a scene.
The lover is even worse than a drunkard.
I will tell you what love is: to enter a mine of gold.
And what is that gold?

The lover is a king above all kings,
unafraid of death, not at all interested in a golden crown.
The dervish has a pearl concealed under his patched cloak.
Why should he go begging door to door?

Last night that moon came along,
drunk, dropping clothes in the street.
"Get up," I told my heart, "Give the soul a glass of wine.
The moment has come to join the nightingale in the garden,
to taste sugar with the soul-parrot."

I have fallen, with my heart shattered-
where else but on your path? And I
broke your bowl, drunk, my idol, so drunk,
don't let me be harmed, take my hand.

A new rule, a new law has been born:
break all the glasses and fall toward the glassblower.