Saturday Poem

Water and Wine

This Saturday I want to share one of my favorite Rumi poems.

This poem –like many poems Rumi wrote– is a conversation with the Divine Beloved. In the Sufi tradition, You (capitals) or Beloved, refers to The Divine.

This poem expresses my experience of the Sacred Self, the Divine I Am and how experiencing our Divine Nature  allows us to feel how perfect we are for our purpose, in spite of our human imperfection.

Water and Wine

With your sweet Soul, this soul of mine

has merged as water does with wine.

Who can part the water from the wine,

or me from You when we combine?

You have become my greater self;

how can smallness limit me?

You’ve taken on my being,

how shall I not take on Yours?

Forever, You have claimed me

that forever I may know You’re mine.

Your love has pierced me to the depths,

its ecstasy entwines both bone and nerve.

I rest as a ney laid upon Your lips;

as an oud I lie against Your breasts.

Breathe deeply in me that I may sigh;

Strike upon my strings and tears glisten.

Sweet are my tears and sweet my sighs;

worldly joys I return to the world.

You remain in my inmost Soul

whose depths the mirrored heavens reflect.

O pearl in this mused shell:

O diamond in my darkest mine!

In You, this honey is dissolved,

O milk of life, so mild, so fine!

Our sweetnesses, all merged in You,

sweeten infant smiles.

You crush me into rose oil, drop by drop;

nor do I complain beneath the press.

In Your sweet pain, pain dissolves;

for I, Your rose, had this intent.

You bade me blossom on Your robe,

and made me for all eyes Your sign.

And when You pour me upon this world,

it blooms in Beauty, fully Divine.

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Rumi

The Rumi Collection

Translated by Camille Helminksi with William Hastie

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