Rubaiyat (from Divan-e Shams)


She clapped when she saw me this way.

“Repentance is shattered. You are drunk again.”
Repentance is like glass, I said,
hard to make, easy to break.

“Repentance is shattered. You are drunk again.”
My moon, where is your home?
Hard to make, easy to break
“In the piles of ruin inside your drunk heart.”

My moon, where is your home?
My eyes?
“In the piles of ruin inside your drunk heart
a river will run there.”

My eyes?
My heart?
“A river will run there.
And bleed until drowned in blood.”

My heart?
My body?
“Bleed until drowned in blood.
If you wait a while,

I will toss your body
through the door.
If you wait a while,
you have shame. I’ll show the world.”

Through the door,
enchanted moon addressed me with her light:
“You have shame. I’ll show the world.”
Go away, I said, not tonight.

The enchanted moon addressed me with her light:
“Moody one,
you have shame. I’ll show the world
you shut the door on fortune.”

Moody one,
on a wild white horse without bridle.
You shut the door on fortune
riding through a valley of terror.

On a wild white horse without bridle,
like a bird fluttering from a trap,
Riding through a valley of terror.
Where does this horse race to? What home, where?

Like a bird fluttering from a trap,
you curse. The moon smiles.
Where does this horse race to? What home, where?
Your curse is a ruby formed by fire.

You curse. The moon smiles.
Repentance is shattered. You are drunk again.
Your curse is a ruby formed by fire.

She clapped when she saw me this way.


By Rumi
adapted, after the Farsi, by Nilufar Karimi


 
Nilufar Karimi is a second-year Literature/Writing Major at UC San Diego.

Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, also known in Iran as Molana, was a poet, theologian, and Sufi mystic. One of his most widely read collection of poems, Divan-e Shams, is known for its spirituality, and for its preservation of the Farsi language.