the public bath

 

Imagine the phenomenal world as a furnace

heating water for the public bath.

Some people carry baskets of dung

to keep the furnace going,  Call them

materialists, energetic, fire-stoking citizens.

One of those brags how he's collected

and carried twenty dung baskets today,

while his friend has brought six!

They think the counting up at nightfall

is where truth lies. They love the smoke smell

of dried dung, and how it blazes up like gold!

If you give them musk or any fragrance

of soul intelligence, they find it unpleasant

and turn away. Others sit in the hot bathwater

and get clean. They use the world differently.

They love the feel of purity, and they have

dust marks on their foreheads from bowing down.

They are separated by a wall from those

who feed the fires, busy in the boiler room

belittling each other. Sometimes, though,

one of those leaves the furnace,

takes off the burnt smelling rags,

and sits in the cleansing water.

The mystery is how the obsessions

of the furnace stokers keep the bathwater

of the others simmering perfectly.

They seem opposed, but they're necessary

to each other's work: the proud piling up

of fire worship, the humble disrobing

and emptying out of purification.

As the sun dries wet dung to make it

ready to heat water, so dazzling

sparks fly from the burning filth.

~ Rumi

from The Book of Love

translations by Coleman Barks