I am this, I am that

I saw a tree and a fire, and heard
a voice that said: “I am the Beloved,”
calling me from the fire. Am I Moses?

I entered the desert in tribulation
and found there manna and quails.
It has been forty years now that like Moses
I have wandered in this desert.

Do not ask about the boat and the sea.
Come, behold that for years
I have been sailing my boat i this dry land.

Come, O Soul! You are Moses and in Your hand
this body becomes a staff,
and when You throw it, it becomes a serpent.

You are Jesus and I am
the bird You made of clay.
As You breathe in me I come alive and fly.

I am the stone pillar of that mosque
which the Prophet leaned on for support;
now his support is elsewhere,
and I lament this separation.

O Lord of the lords and faceless Maker of faces!
What face are you ordaining for me?
I know You know, and I do not.

Sometimes I’m stone and sometimes iron;
at other times I’m all fire.
Sometimes I’m a balance without a weight;
sometimes I’m both weight and balance.

Sometimes I graze here,
and at other times they graze on me.
Sometimes I’m a wolf, and sometimes I’m a ewe,
yet at other times I am the very shepherd.

They seemed important, these signs,
but how could they ever last?
Neither this nor that will last,
and only He to whom I belong knows what I am.

Divani Shasi Tabrizi 1414

From: Rumi: “Love’  Ripening”
Translated by Khadir Helmisnki