" HOW DOES A PART OF THE WORLD LEAVE THE WORLD?"

How does a part of the world leaves the world?

How can wetness leave water?


Don't try to put out a fire

by trowing on more fire!

Don't wash a wound with blood!


No matter how fast you run,

your shadow more then keep up.

Sometimes, it's in front!


Only full, overhead sun

diminishes your shadow.


But that shadow has been serving you!

What hurts you, blesses you.

Darkness is your candle.

Your boundaries are your quest.


I can explain this, but it would break

the glass cover on your heart,

and there is no fixing that.


You must have shadow and light-source both.

Listen, and lay your head under the tree of Awe.

When from that tree, feathers and wings sprout

on you, be quieter than a dove.

Don't open your mouth for even a coooooo.


When a frog  slips into the water, the snake

cannot get it. Then the frog climbs back out

and croaks, and the snake moves forward towards him again.


Even if the frog learned to hiss, still the snake

would hear through the hiss the information

he needed, the frog- voice underneath.


But if the frog could be completed silent,

then the snake would go back to sleeping,

and the frog could reach the barley.


The soul lives there in the silent Breath.

And that grain of barley is such that,

when you put it in the ground,

it grows. Are these enough words,

or shall I squeeze more juice from this?


Who am I, my friends?


Rumi ~43 Odes ~  Versions by Coleman Barks