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Looking for your own face

Farid ud-Din Attar, Farid ud-Din Attar poetry, Muslim / Sufi, Muslim / Sufi poetry,  poetry, [TRADITION SUB2] poetry,  poetry by Farid ud-Din Attar
(1120? - 1220?) Timeline

English version by
Coleman Barks

Original Language
Persian/Farsi

Muslim / Sufi
12th Century

Your face is neither infinite nor ephemeral.
You can never see your own face,
only a reflection, not the face itself.

So you sigh in front of mirrors
and cloud the surface.

It's better to keep your breath cold.
Hold it, like a diver does in the ocean.
One slight movement, the mirror-image goes.

Don't be dead or asleep or awake.
Don't be anything.

What you most want,
what you travel around wishing to find,
lose yourself as lovers lose themselves,
and you'll be that.

 

 

-- from The Hand of Poetry: Five Mystic Poets of Persia, with Lectures by Inayat Khan, Translated by Coleman Barks

Amazon.com

 

Themes

  Death
  Lover and Beloved
  Water
 
 


Recommended Books


The Conference of the Birds, Translated by Afkham Darbandi / Translated by Dick Davis
Conference of the Birds: A Seeker's Journey to God, Translated by Rustom Pestonji Masani
The Conference of the Birds: The Selected Sufi Poetry of Farid ud-Din Attar, Translated by Raficq Abdulla
The Drunken Universe: An Anthology of Persian Sufi Poetry, Translated by Peter Lamborn Wilson / Translated by Nasrollah Pourjavady
The Hand of Poetry: Five Mystic Poets of Persia, with Lectures by Inayat Khan, Translated by Coleman Barks

More >>

 

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Ivan M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are Copyright © 2002 - 2009 by Ivan M. Granger.
All other material is copyrighted by the respective authors, translators and/or publishers.