Advice doesn't help lovers!
They're not the kind of mountain stream
you can build a dam across.

An intellectual doesn't know what the drunk is feeling!

Don't try to figure what those lost inside love will do next!

Someone in charge would give up all his power,
if he caught one whiff of the wine-musk
from the room where lovers are doing who-knows- what!

One of them tries to dig a hole through a mountain.
One flees from academic honors.
One laughs at famous mustaches!

Life freezes if it doesn't get a taste
of this almond cake.
The stars come up spinning
every night, bewildered in love.
They'd grow tired with that revolving, if they weren't.
They'd say, "How long do we have to Do this!"

God picks up the reed-flute world and blows.
Each note is a need coming through one of us,
a passion, a longing-pain.

Remember the lips
where the wind-breath originated,
and let your note be clear.
Don't try to end it .
BE Your Note.
I'll show you how it's enough.

Go up on the roof at night
in the city of the soul.

Let Everyone climb on their roofs
and sing their notes!

Sing loud!

I went inside my heart
to see how it was.

Something there makes me hear
the whole world weeping.

Then I went to every city and small town,
searching for someone who could speak wisdom,
but everyone was complaining about love.

That moaning gave me an idea: Go back inside
and find the answer. But I found nothing.

The heart acts as translator between
mystical experience and intelligence.

It has its own inhabitants who do not talk
with someone just wandering through.

And remember that Muhammed said of the place
in human beings we call the heart,
This is what I value.

If I hold you with my emotions,
you'll become a wished-for companion.

If I hold you with my eyes,
you'll grow old and die.

So I hold you where we
both mix with the infinite.

From cane reeds, sugar.
From a worm's cocoon, silk.

Love Dogs

One night a man was crying,
Allah! Allah!
His lips grew sweet with the praising,
until a cynic said, "So! I have heard you
calling out, but have you ever gotten any response?"

The man had no answer to that.
He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep.

He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls,
in a thick, green foliage.
"Why did you stop praising?"
"Because I've never heard anything back."
"This longing you express is the return message."

The grief you cry out from
draws you toward union.

Your pure sadness
that wants help
is the secret cup.

Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.
That whining is the connection.

There are love-dogs
no one knows the names of.

Give your life
to be one of them.

Many more Rumi poems will appear here in time