Seizing my life in your hands, you thrashed me clean

by Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi

English version by Andrew Harvey
Original Language Persian/Farsi & Turkish

Seizing my life in your hands, you thrashed me clean
On savage rocks of eternal mind.
How its colors bled, until they grew white!
You smile and sit back: I dry in your sun.

The Sea boils with passion for you,
The clouds pour pearls at your feet
A lightning from your love has pierced the earth
This smoke curling to heaven is its child.

We were green: we ripened and grew golden.
The Sea terrified us: we learned how to drown.
Squat and earthbound, we unfolded huge wings.
We started sober: are love's startled drunkards.

You hide me in your cloak of nothingness
Reflect my ghost in your glass of being
I am nothing, yet appear: transparent dream
Where your eternity briefly trembles.

-- from The Way of Passion: A Celebration of Rumi, by Andrew Harvey

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Seizing my life in