Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other” doesn’t make any sense.
Rumi (translation by Coleman Barks)
Out beyond wrongdoing and rightdoing
Out beyond wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a desert
The desert beckons us as if it were the oasis
We long to hold one another in its lush grass
and drink from the clear spring
The moon whispers in my ear:
I have one foot in that desert
But don’t ask me to meet you there
For in that desert of disillusionment,
just as with right and wrong,
you and I and even oneness
cease to exist
Rumi (translation by Ari Honarvar)
از کفر و ز اسلام برون صحرائی است
ما را به میان آن فضا سودائی است
عارف چو بدان رسید سر را بنهد
© 2016 Rumi translation by Ari Honarvar
Sergey Pesterev on Unsplash
