DON’T FOOL YOURSELF

Happy Friday!

I hope you enjoyed my blog yesterday.

I’ll be teaching today and enjoying some unbound play with my students.

Today, I’d like to let Rumi say the same thing to you in his own very special way.

Love and chi,

Paul Chek

Your face resembles the moon.

Your heart is like stone.

Your soul is the soul of immortality.

Your beauty is the light of the eyes.

Your enemy is like the donkey’s tail

In talent and skill.

Why should you run after him?

Since it’s not getting bigger, let it go.

I swear the one who runs panting heavily,

Makes sparks with their nails.

Everything else exists or doesn’t exist.

Everything is in my eyes like rain clouds.

I cry and cry when I don’t see you.

The one who is not a lover deserves to be plucked.

Sugar is for halva, vinegar for Kebre Otu.

When I am separated from you,
O’beautiful, to whom my life would be sacrificed,

I keep trembling in your air.

Anyone who has kindness and compassion

Besides you is deceitful and tricky.

Since you have nothing to do with anyone,

Don’t you instigate trouble,

Don’t snatch and carry away heart.

But once you take heart,

Don’t send him back from your door

When you gaze stops someone,

Your eyes become a guide to the lost one,

Show him the way,

Don’t be fooled by the charms of that Indian.

Love is a heart catcher.

The development of friends is by love.

He makes your soul green like trees,

Decorated by flowers.

Love is beautiful, fresh.

The one who looks for it is even more tender.

Every shape in this world is old.

The one who loves this world is a cobbler.

Lovers flow from river to river toward the sea.

The old rubbish buyer searches for rubbish

And yells to neighbors, “Who has old shoes?”

Poem 41. Divan-I Kebir, Meter 10

Translated by Nevit O. Ergin

Echo Publications, Los Angeles, Ca. 2000