Rumi’s Green-Winged Longing

The Ottoman Sultan Selim II receives the Persian ambassador in the palace at Edirne in 1567

This world of two gardens, and both so beautiful.

This world, a street where a funeral is passing.

Let us rise together and leave “this world,”

as water goes bowing down itself to the ocean.

From gardens to the gardener, from grieving

to wedding feast. We tremble like leaves

about to let go. There’s no avoiding pain,

or feeling exiled, or the taste of dust.

But also we have a green-winged longing

for the sweetness of the Friend.

These forms are evidence of what

cannot be shown. Here’s how it is

to go into that: rain that’s been leaking

into the house decides to use the downspout.

Finish reading Ghazal 1713 and examine a number of variant translations here

–Mawlānā Jalāl-ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī (Rumi) (مولانا جلال الدین محمد رومی), Dīwān-e Shams-e Tabrīzī (یوان شمس تبریزی), vol. 4, Ghazal 1713 (ca. 1250 CE) (this text is based on a translation by John Moyne further developed by Coleman Barks)(میکشم میکشم آنکه برادرم کشت).