on finding a guide

You wear coarse wool, but you're a king,

as the soul's energy hides, as love

remembers. You enter this room in a human

shape and as the atmosphere we breathe.

You are the central pole through the nine

levels connecting them and us to absolute

absence. So that we can have what we want,

you give failure and frustration. You want

only the company of the lion and the lion

cub, no wobbly legs. That man there, you

suggest, might remove his head before

entering the temple. Then he could listen

without ears to a voice that says, My

creature. A month of walking the road, you

make that distance in one day. Never mind

gold and silver payments. When you feel

generous, give your head. My beauty,

you have no need for a guide. The one

who follows and the one who leads are

inseparable, as the moon and the circle

around it. An Arab drags his camel town

to town. You go through your troubles

and changing beliefs, both no different from

the moon moving across or basil growing

and getting cut for a bouquet. It doesn't

matter you've been lost. The hoopoe is

still looking for you. It's another

beginning, my friend, this waking in a

morning with no haze, and help coming

without your asking! A glass submerged

is turning inside the wine. With grief

waved away, sweet gratefulness arrives.

~ Rumi 

Coleman Barks, Nevit Ergin version