Rumi, Poet of the Month at Kubrick

Arabic Nadwah – Hong Kong 31 March 2008

Kubrick Bookshop of Hong Kong hosted a literary session to discuss Rumi’s poetry yesterday 30 March 2008. Invited by Kubrick to give a brief introduction to Rumi before reading some of his poems translated in English, Sayed Gouda talked for half an hour within which he sketched Rumi's life from his birth in the Balk on 30 September 1207 to his death in Konya on 18 August 1273. Gouda highlighted the historical background of his era and outlined the events that had a great impact on Rumi and turned him to a Sufi poet at the age of 39 and the reasons behind his writing the three books he left us.

After the introduction and reading a few poems of Rumi questions were raised about the meaning of the symbols in Rumi's poems. Opinions differed on Rumi's ambiguous way of using words and images, some of which do not seem logical or attuned to the context. Gouda explained that Rumi's poems were not supposed to be approached with a logical analysis as he himself warned against such kind of reading in more than a place in his poetry for it is only with heart we can appreciate his writing. A French and German participants, who were well-versed in philosophy, expressed their amazement at Rumi's subtle images and profound ideas bearing in mind that the work on hand was written in the thirteenth century. They labeled Rumi a ‘skeptic’ of his own existence as well as the existence of God, a suggestion countered by Gouda saying that Rumi’s words were describing his state of being spiritually ‘drunk’. That state of drunkenness was beyond the limits of words as Rumi himself indicated that the truth that can be captured in words is not the truth. Gouda drew a line of similarity between Sufism and Buddhism to show how the first was influenced by the latter beginning from the ninth century. Some Chinese audience quoted from Buddhism and Taoism excerpts that supported that view.

Though the session was supposed to last for only one hour , it went on for two hours in a non-stop heated and intellectual discussion and in-depth reading of Rumi's poems. At the end, they all agreed that the symbols in Rumi’s poetry cannot be interpreted in only one dimension but they have intensity and depth more than what meet the eyes.

Poems of Rumi read at the session

Translated by Coleman Barks

Who Says Words With My Mouth?

All day I think about it, then at night I say it.

Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?

I have no idea.

My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that,

And I intend to end up there.

This drunkenness began in some other tavern.

When I get back around to that place,

I’ll be completely sober. Meanwhile,

I’m like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary.

The day is coming when I fly off,

But who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?

Who says words with my mouth?

Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?

I cannot stop asking.

If I could taste one sip of an answer,

I could break out this prison for drunks.

I didn’t come here of my own accord, and I can’t leave that way.

Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.

This poetry. I never know what I’m going to say.

I don’t plan it.

When I’m outside the saying of it,

I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.  
 

Enough Words?

How does a part of the world leave the world?

How can wetness leave water?

Don’t try to put out a fire

By throwing on more fire!

Don’t wash a wound with blood!

No matter how fast you run,

your shadow more than keeps 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’s 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 coooooooo.

When a frog slips into the water, the snake

cannot get it. Then the frog climbs back out

and croaks, and the snake moves toward 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 completely silent,

Then the snake would go back to sleeping,

and the frog would 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 friend?

* * *

When you are with everyone but me,

                 you’re with no one.

When you are with no one but me,

                 you’re with everyone.

Instead of being so bound up with everyone,

                 be everyone.

When you become that many, you’re nothing.

                 Empty.

* * *

I am so small I can barely be seen.

How can this great love be inside me?

Look at your eyes. They are small,

but they see enormous things.

Poems distributed but not read at the session

A Thirsty Fish

I don’t get tired of you. Don’t grow weary

of being compassionate toward me!

All this thirst equipment

must surely be tired of me,

the waterjar, the water carrier.

I have a thirsty fish in me

that can never find enough

of what it’s thirsty for!

Show me the way to the ocean!

Break these half-measures,

these small containers.

All this fantasy

And grief.

Let my house be drowned in the wave

that rose last night out of the courtyard

hidden in the center of my chest.

Joseph fell like the moon into my well.

The harvest I expected was washed away.

But no matter.

A fire has risen above my tombstone hat.

I don’t want learning, or dignity,

or respectability.

I want this music and this dawn

And the warmth of your cheek against mine.

The grief-armies assemble,

But I’m not going with them.

This is how it always is

When I finish a poem.

A great silence overcomes me,

And I wonder why I ever thought

to use language.

Those Who Don't Feel This Love

Those who don't feel this love 
pulling them like a river

Those who don't drink dawn 
like a cup of spring water 
or take sunset like supper

Those who don't want to change 
Let them sleep.

This Love 
is beyond the study of theology 
that old and trickery and hypocrisy

If you want to improve your mind that way 
Sleep on.

I've given up on my brain 
I've torn the cloth to shreds 
and thrown it away.

If you're not completely naked 
wrap your beautiful robe of words  
around you

and sleep.