Rumi Translated by Coleman Barks

“If you want what visible reality
can give, you're an employee.
If you want the unseen world,
you're not living your truth.
Both wishes are foolish,
but you'll be forgiven for forgetting
that what you really want is
love's confusing joy.”
― Coleman Barks

“In the front yard lives the oldest thing around, a white oak
That I used to say is my love for the world,
That I now would just call love as it is.
Belonging to nobody, no metaphor, the very.”
― Coleman Barks

“Fold within fold, the beloved
drowns in its own being. This world
is drenched with that drowning.”
― Coleman Barks, The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems

“We were all born by accident but this wandering caravan
will make camp in perfection
Forget the nonsense categories of there and here, race, nation, religion, starting point and destination
You are soul, and you are love,...
No more questions now as to what it is we're doing here”
― Coleman Barks