"Really, what other book would anyone ever need?” — Naomi Shihab Nye, author of Honeybee
“Elegant and exquisite” — Deepak Chopra, author of Muhammad, Jesus, and Buddha
“Coleman Barks found Rumi floating in some Georgia lake and brought him back to life. What a blessing! Rumi says, ‘Some nights stay up until dawn, as the moon sometimes does for the sun.’ Coleman has stayed up all night, and every reader is grateful” - Robert Bly, National Book Award-winning poet and translator
“Rumi’s Big Red Book tells us: ‘Compassion builds a door, Restlessness cuts a key.’ I am forever grateful to Coleman Barks, restless, yearning to find the bridge from Rumi and Shams to the world we presently inhabit. He is truly to Be Loved for making this ‘transaction with beauty’…” - Debra Winger, Actress
“Without question, we can credit Coleman Barks with making Rumi accessible to American readers through his modernized renditions of the best-known poems of the great Islamic mystic.... Richly sensual yet never flowery, Barks’ language emphasizes Rumi’s embodied spirituality in a book to savor” - Booklist [starred review]
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The Big Red Book is a poetic masterpiece from Jalaluddin Rumi, the medieval Sufi mystic whom Time magazine calls “the most popular poet in America.” Readers continue to be awed and inspired by Rumi’s masterfully lyrical, deeply expressive poems, collected in volumes such as The Illustrated Rumi, The Soul of Rumi, and the bestselling The Essential Rumi. With The Big Red Book, acclaimed poet and Rumi interpreter Coleman Barks offers a never-before-published translation of a crucial anthology of poems widely considered to be one of Persian literature’s greatest treasures.
Book Description
Considered one of the masterpieces of world literature, The Big Red Book is perhaps the greatest work of Rumi, the medieval Sufi mystic who also happens to be the bestselling poet in America.
Rumi was born in 1207 to a long line of Islamic theologians and lawyers on the eastern edge of the Persian Empire in what is now Afghanistan. In order to escape the invading Mongol armies of Genghis Khan, his family moved west to a town now found in Turkey, where he eventually became the leader of a school of whirling dervishes. It was a fateful day in 1244 when he met Shams Tabriz, a wild mystic with rare gifts and insight. The renowned scholar Rumi had found a soul mate and friend who would become his spiritual mentor and literary muse. "What I had thought of before as God," Rumi said, "I met today in a human being."
Out of their friendship, Rumi wrote thousands of lyric poems and short quatrains in honor of his friend Shams Tabriz. They are poems of divine epiphany, spiritual awakening, friendship, and love. For centuries, Rumi's collection of these verses has traditionally been bound in a red cover, hence the title of this inspired classic of spiritual literature.
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CONTENTS
Introduction 1
Rumi's Life 1
The Soul Essence of Shams Tabriz 7
I ODES (GHASALS) 13
Names for the Mystery 14
1 Al-Fattah, The Opener 15
Jars of Springwater 16
God in the Stew 16
Undressing 16
Flightpaths 17
Mountaintop Trough 17
Open Window 18
A Northern Wind 18
Entrance Door 19
The Opener 19
The Source of Joy 20
The Silent Articulation of a Face 20
Cry Out Your Grief 21
The Heart Acts as Translator 21
We Are Tired of Secret Joy 22
Fasting 22
In the Arc of Your Mallet 23
The Torrent Leaves 23
Locked Out of Life 24
Granite and Glass 24
A Garden is Questioning the Dawn 25
What a Fine Song 25
Soul Spring 26
2 Al-Jami, The Gatherer 27
Everyone Outdoors Talking 28
A Story They Know 29
The Meeting 29
Leaving 31
We Are the Sun 31
Uncle of the Jar 32
Asylum 33
A Delicate Girl 33
Blade 34
Strange Gathering 34
Keep Moving 35
Trees 36
Walking Out of the Treasury Building 36
Keeper of Secrets 37
The Shop 38
The Wine Vat's Lid 38
The Waterwheel 39
A Community of the Spirit 40
No Ordinary Friendship 41
At Home in Both Places 41
3 Al-Batin, The Hidden 43
The Living Doubleness 44
Green from Inside 44
Saladin 45
Harvest 45
See What You Have Despised in Yourself 46
Climb to the Execution Place 46
To the Extent They Can Die 47
Broom Work 47
Back into the Reedbed 48
Bowls of Food 48
You So Hidden 51
The Tent 51
Privacy 52
This Splashing Around 52
Drum 53
Wherever He is Moving 53
This Soup 53
What the Sun Says Rising 55
4 Al-Khabir, The Aware, The Knowing 57
The Knots Unite 58
Solomon Ant 58
Water from the Well of the Soul 59
Talking to the Luck-Bird 60
A Beautiful Walk Inside You 60
More Range 61
Knowledge Beyond Love 61
Cup 62
Sour, Doughy, Numb, and Raw 63
Someone Being Drawn to You 63
A New-Green Branch 63
The Oldest Thirst There is 64
The Reed Flute's Work 64
Roselit Piece of Shell 65
A Bowl 65
Unfold Your Own Myth 66
Bismillah 67
5 Al-Bari, The Maker From Nothing 68
Two Days of Silence 69
Soul Houses 69
One Being Inside All 70
You Make Your Own Oil as You Cook 71
What is Inside the Ground 71
Two Donkeys 72
Spring Drumming Again 72
Go Behind the Screen 73
The Mill 73
The Elusive Ones 74
A Garden Where the House Was 74
After Being in Love, the Next Responsibility 75
Thornbush Music 76
Spindrift 76
Spillings 77
6 Al-Hayy, The Living 78
The Verge of Tears 79
Entering the Shell 79
A Mixed-Breed Apple 80
What You Gave 80
Desolation 81
Choose a Suffering 81
The Death of Saladin 82
The Music We Are 82
Glory to Mutabilis 83
The Most Alive Moment 84
It is All Laughing 84
The Reply 84
The Diver's Clothes Lying Empty 85
Decorating the Cell 86
With You Here Between 86
A Bit of Embroidery 87
Your Love Reveals Your Beauty 88
The Wood and the Flames, Still Talking 88
The Day I Die 89
Old, Yet Freshly Begun 90
Never Quite as Alive
7 Al-Haqq, The Truth 91
Hamza's Nothing 92
Another Invitation 92
Miles of Riverside Canebrake 93
Alive with Scripture 93
You Shall Not See Me 95
A Brightening Floor 96
Wind That Mixes with Your Fire 96
Not Intrigued with Evening 96
A Lion Looking for Laughter 97
The Face 97
Greed and Generosity 98
The Rights of Crying 98
The Other Thing 99
My Worst Habit 99
Soul and Friend 100
8 As-Salaam, Peace 101
Calm in the Midst of Lightning 102
A Mountain Nest 102
Full Sun 103
Begin 103
A Clean Sandy Spot 104
A Vague Trace 104
Talking Through the Door 104
Look, Fish 106
In Prison 107
Rumi's Deathbed Poem 107
The Beloved Night 108
Quietness 108
Sanai 109
Spring is Christ 110
Red Shirt 110
Not a Day on Any Calendar 111
The Least Figure 111
9 Ar-Rahim, The Compassionate 112
I See My Beauty in You 113
Your Morning Shade 113
The Wave of That Agreement 113
The Faint Lament of Form 114
Evidence 115
Evening Sky Garnet Red 115
This Battered Saucepan 116
The Mystery of the Way 116
Champion Lovemaker and Leader of Men 117
The Buddhist Sufi 117
Up to the Neck 118
Open Your Mouth to This Wind 119
Wetness and Water 119
Out of the Image-Making Business 121
Flutes for Dancing 121
Wax 121
The Many Appeals of the Color Red 122
10 An-Nur, Light 123
The Light Inside the Face 124
A Walking Fire 124
The Shine in the Fields 125
More of Your Names 125
Daring Enough to Finish 126
Inhale Autumn, Long for Spring 126
Ocean Light 127
Soul Light and Sun the Same 128
The Generations I Praise 128
Sneezing Out Animals 128
The Importance of Setting Out 129
Walking Up, Dawn Music 129
Move into the Sun 130
The Ocean Moving All Night 130
A Cleared Site 130
Some Kiss 131
Sticks Full of Light 131
Sunlight 132
Wet and Dry 133
One Drop 133
Passage into Silence 133
Shreds of Steam 134
11 Ash-Shakur, The Grateful 135
Underwater in the Fountain 136
Drowsy 136
So We Can Have What We Want 136
Every Tree 137
Doorsill 138
What Fear of Loss? 139
Is This a Place Where Stories Are Acted Out? 139
The Sun's Glowing Castiron Mold 140
Preparing the Pen 140
How You Became What You Are Now 141
Bonfire at Midnight 142
A Ripe Fig 142
The Deepest Rest 143
Stingy Aloes Wood 143
Sweet Outlaws 144
A Grape 145
Shamss Air 145
Content with Ignorance 146
The New Moon 146
12 Al-Latif, The Subtle, The Intricate 147
What Is Not Here 148
Raw, Well-Cooked, and Burnt 148
Why and Where We Go 149
Word Fog 149
Leaves About to Let Go 150
Spilled Speech 151
The Dance of Your Hidden Life 151
Hunt Music 152
An Ointment Mixed with Earth 152
If You Want to Live in Your Soul 153
Spring 154
Lost Camel 155
Goldsmithing 155
The Nightwatchman 156
Strange Business 156
Phrase Your Question 157
Lies from Each Other 158
I Am the Ground 158
We Are Three 159
13 Bawa Muhaiyaddeen 160
A Transparent Tree 161
Silkworms 161
A Voice Through the Door 162
A Great Rose Tree 162
A Light Within His Light 162
Pure Silence 163
A Waking Town 164
Walkingstick Dragon 164
Let the Way Itself Arrive 165
Mounted Man 165
Clouds 166
Language is a Tailor's Shop Where Nothing Fits 166
Only One Sunrise a Day 167
That Moment Again 168
I Have Such a Teacher 168
The Snow-World Melts 169
Wind That Tastes of Bread and Salt 169
A Thirsty Fish 170
A Waterbird Flying into the Sun 170
14 Osho 172
Friday 173
Musk in a Small Box 173
A Hundred and One 174
A Man Talking to His House 174
The Time of Divulging 175
Holiday Without Limits 177
We Cannot Decide 178
I Pass By the Door 179
Joseph 179
No Discussion 180
Burnt Kabob 180
Our Turn 181
Love's Nightcap 181
Answers from the Elements 182
Say Yes Quickly 182
Basra Dates 183
Raggedness 184
A Great Wagon 185
See Where It Comes From 185
The Oven's Question 186
15 Ramana Maharshi 187
Would You Bow? 188
I Am Not This 189
I Met One Traveling 189
The Only Obligation 190
Struck Tent 190
Empty Boat 191
Infidel Fish 191
When Your Secret is Spoken 192
Baby Pigeon 192
An Egypt Wandering Wilderness 195
Come Back, My Friend 195
I Am More the Way You Are 196
A Closed Jar 196
Almost in Sight 197
16 Dissolving the Concept of "God" 198
A Question 199
The Taste of Morning 199
You Are as You Are 200
Thorn Witness 200
The Self We Share 201
Stranded Somewhere 202
Let the Soup Simmer 202
Like a Fig 203
Winter or Summer 204
Whereabouts Unknown 205
Drawn by Soup 205
The Last of Your Wine 205
I Am Not 206
This Love Which is Made of Our Love for Emptiness 206
The Whole Place Goes Up 207
Flood Residue 207
Spoken Things 208
Sleep 209
This Night of Talking 209
Your Presence 210
At That Meeting 211
A Walk You Can Take 212
Headless Camels 212
17 Playing 213
Playing and Being Played 214
Inside the Rose 215
As the Sky Does in Water 215
Seeds and Rain 216
One Thing I Did Wrong 216
Hometown Streets 216
Pictures of the Soul 217
Border Stations 218
No More the Presence 218
Givens 218
I Keep Using Two Pronouns 219
Your Old Aunt and Uncle 220
This Praising Sound 220
When Completely Naked 221
Friends with Sunlight 221
I'm Not Saying This Right 222
The Steambath 222
18 Shams Tabriz: The Friend 224
The Friend 225
An Invisible Bee 226
A Grainy Taste 226
The Mirror Between Us 226
The Pleiades 227
Parinda, the One Who Flies Away 227
The One Who Left 228
Avalanche 228
Your Turn at Dice 228
Back to Being 229
Your Face 229
The Sweet Blade of Your Anger 230
Soul, Heart, and Body One Morning 230
What I Say Makes Me Drunk 231
Any Chance Meeting 231
Sitting Together 232
I Throw It All Away 232
A King Dressed as a Servant 232
The Spirit-Lion in a Human Being 233
Sun and Sky 234
A Mystic and a Drunk 234
A Cave Where Shams Tabriz is Resting 235
A Lantern 235
A Gift for Shams 235
This Ink 236
Conversation at Night 236
19 Tenderness Toward Existence 238
A General Introductory Lecture 239
An Armor of Roses 239
Both Worlds 240
Autumn Rose Elegy 240
This High Meadow 241
Granted 242
Abraham and Isaac 243
I Ask One More Thing 244
Forth 245
Fourteen Questions 245
Refuge 245
What Happens to Seeds Inside Their Prisons 246
A Line of Clouds 247
The Image of Your Body 247
Infinitesimal Dust 247
The Elegance of the Ermine 248
Night and Candle 249
This Out of Control 249
Wandering and Coming Back 250
Stay in a Listening Posture 250
20 As-Sabur, The Patient 252
Disciplines 252
Continuously 253
Fierce Courtesy 254
What Have You Been Drinking? 254
Look at a Fountain 254
Sick of Scripture 255
Two Human-Sized Wedding Candles 255
We Prescribe a Friend 256
Wretched, but Laughing 256
I Am Inside Your Thirst 257
The Bottle Is Corked 258
Your First Eyes 258
You Never Left 259
Who Is the Friend? 259
Morning Talk 260
The Ground Cries Out 261
21 Ar-Rahman, the Kind 262
As Lakewater Rises into Mist 262
A Smile and a Gentleness 263
New Blossoms 263
The Talking 264
Green Writ 265
Saladin's Leaving 265
Feet Becoming Head 266
Both Wings Broken 266
Blessing the Marriage 266
Wake and Walk Out 267
Auction 267
Scatterbrain Sweetness 268
One Who Can Quit Seeing Himself 268
Talking in the Night 268
Maybe They Are Shy 269
Folded into the River 270
Dissolver of Sugar 270
How Finite Minds Most Want to Be 271
Buoyancy 271
Black Tulip 272
Ramadan Silence 273
22 Al-Mutakabbir, The Majesty 274
This Day's Great Wooden Bowl 275
Birds Nesting Near the Coast 275
The Bright Core of Failure 276
Outdoors and the Passion of the Grass 277
The Pattern Improves 278
This is Enough 278
Remember Egypt 279
Love Dervishes 279
Say I Am You 280
Inward Sky 280
As Ripeness Comes 281
Limb-Shadows 282
A Springlike Night in Mid-December 283
Freshness 283
The Burning Ocean 284
Entirely Jewels 284
A New Kind of Waking 284
Angry at the Road, at God 285
23 As-Sami, The Hearing 286
Tambourine Feet 287
A World Dense with Greeting 287
Even Better 288
Music is My Zikr 289
Listening 289
Earsight 290
Asleep and Listening 290
Inside Shams's Universe 291
We No Longer See the One Who Teaches Us 291
Music Loosens Deafness 292
Not a Food Sack, a Reed Flute 293
New Light on the Ground 293
More of What We Say 293
A Frog Deep in the Presence 294
A Well-Baked Loaf 295
Sing Loud 295
The Joy of the Sun 296
Eyes That Love Sunset 296
24 Al-Basir, The Seeing 298
I See the Face 299
Ashes, Wanderers 299
Wooden Walkingstick 300
What I See in Your Eyes 300
As Fish Drink the Ocean 301
Too Vast for Partnership 301
You Are Not Your Eyes 302
The Breast My Heart Nurses 302
Cooked Heads 303
Cuisine and Sex 303
The Flower's Eye 304
Breaking Loose 304
No Way to Compare 304
Someone Digging in the Ground 305
Let's Go Home 305
An Empty Garlic 306
Inside Sight 306
No Room for Form 307
25 Al-Wadud, The Loving 309
More Is Required 310
What is the Heart? 310
Secret Places 311
No Expectations 311
Gone for Good 313
I Rocked My Own Chest 313
Midnight and Sunrise 314
Watch a One-Year-Old 314
Roses Underfoot 314
Wilder Than We Ever 315
Not Here 315
One Swaying Being 316
A Trace 316
No Occupation 317
Fresh Roots 317
A Constant Conversation 317
Let the Letter Read You 319
Start Your Lives Over 320
What Would I Be? 320
Shuttles 321
Like This 322
Low in the Roots 323
Lost in You 324
26 Everything and Everyone Else 325
Hallaj 326
Spring Murmur 326
Fastened to a Pole 327
Any Sprig of an Herb 328
Currency 329
A Preposterous Guess 330
The Value of This Moment 330
Two Lovings 330
The Creation Word 331
Amazed Mouth 331
Mashallah 332
Come Horseback 332
YHU 332
Form Is Ecstatic 333
Grace Got Confused 333
The Moon-shaped Threshing Floor 334
Every Detail Shows How That One is in Love 335
There is Nothing Ahead 335
The New Rule 336
Unmarked Boxes 336
Sometimes I Forget Completely 337
No Need to Ask 337
All Rivers Moving at Once 338
Drunk with the Whole 339
Kiss of Solitude 339
The Face 340
One Being, and Separate Beings Too 340
27 The Name that Cannot Be Spoken or Written 342
In Love that Long 343
Hoofbeats 343
Ready for Silence 344
Empty 345
Music and Silence 345
Pieces of a Broken Cup 346
Solomon and the Wind of Speaking 346
Pearl 347
A Ship Gliding over Nothing 347
There You Are 348
This Disaster 349
Astrological Bickerings 349
The Nothing of Roselight 350
A New Idea 351
The Sky of the Brain 351
Only Breath 352
Who Says Words with My Mouth? 352
Silver Coins 353
Daybreak 353
Nearer Than Your Jugular 354
Qualities and a Blue-Green Sea 355
Spaciousness 355
The Exuberant Confusion 356
A Bowl Thrown Out 356
The Arrival 357
Zero Circle 357
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II Quatrains (Rubai)
Introduction to the Quatrains 360
Springwater: Rumi's Short Poems 360
Organizational Note 364 28 Taurus: The Bull 365
Late, by myself, in the boat of myself 365
I am crying, my tears tell me that much 365
Friend, our closeness is this 366
When I am with you, we stay up all night 366
When I die, lay out the corpse 366
This bleating eventually stops 366
For years, copying other people 366
Today like every other day 366
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you 367
Take someone who does not keep score 367
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing 367
I would love to kiss you 367
We have this way of talking 367
Someone who goes with half a loaf of bread 367
Who sees inside from outside 368
Looking for the ocean 368
Your eyes are the mystery 368
29 Ursa Major: The Great Bear, The Big Dipper 369
The clear bead at the center 369
We take long trips 370
Does sunset sometimes look 370
Daylight, full of small dancing particles 370
They try to say what you are 370
This human shape is a ghost 370
Stay in the company of lovers 370
There is a light seed grain inside 371
Do not think of good advice for me 371
You don't have bad days and good days 371
The Sufi opens his hands to the universe 371
There is a strange frenzy in my head 371
Not until someone dissolves 371
Soul of this world 372
It may be sometimes noisy 372
30 Corona Borealis: The Northern Crown 373
They say that paradise will be perfect 373
Come to the orchard in spring 373
Poles apart, I am the color of dying 374
Think that you are gliding out 374
For a while we lived with people 374
The mystery does not get clearer 374
The minute I am disappointed 374
I drink streamwater 374
In pain I breathe easier 375
Today I am out wandering 375
I asked for one kiss 375
I am insane 375
You who long for powerful positions 375
A poet tries to say love's mystery 375
31 Libra: The Scales 376
During the day I was singing with you 376
Drinking wine with you 376
Since we have seen each other 377
The minute I heard my first love story 377
If you have any patience left 377
You say you have no sexual longing anymore 377
I am not talking out loud 377
We have given up making a living 377
We have a huge barrel of wine 378
Do you think I know what I'm doing 378
Do not sit long with a sad friend 378
Inside the great mystery that is 378
There is no light like yours 378
As salt dissolves in ocean 379
Show me yourself in the beauty of the world 379
32 Gemini: The Twins, Castor and Pollux 380
We are the mirror 380
At night we fall into each other 381
We are walking through a garden 381
The one who floods the private sanctuary 381
The center clears 381
The light you give off 381
All day and night, music 381
Sleep has no authority 381
This night extends into eternity 382
Days are sieves to filter spirit 382
Out of nowhere a horse brought us here 382
Earlier, to be ready 382
Yesterday was glory and joy 382
Love told me to reject mind 382
You push me into the dance 382
33 Cancer: The Crab 383
These gifts from the friend 383
There is no companion but love 384
I pretended to leap 384
Here is a magnificent person 384
Let the lover be disgraceful 384
The manner and appearance of a prophet 384
If you have a spirit 384
If you want to live 384
Life is ending 385
I thought I had self-control 385
This piece of food cannot be eaten 385
You come to reading books late in life 385
I lay my forehead in the dust 385
The early morning breeze tastes sweet 385
34 Cassiopeia: The Queen 386
Some nights, stay up till dawn 386
Tonight remove whatever remains 386
No wine glasses here 387
We do not need wine to get drunk 387
No better love than love with no object 387
I can break off from anyone 387
Noah's ark is the symbol of our species 387
What is this day with two suns in the sky 387
Glass of wine in hand, I fall 387
The friend comes clapping 388
The friend comes into my body 388
This night there are no limits 388
Last night, full of longing 388
The rider has passed 388
Listen for the stream that tells you 388
If love is a battle 388
Reason has no way to say its love 389
Love is beyond body, mind, heart, and soul 389
35 Virgo: The Virgin 390
Tonight is the essence of night 390
A night full of talking that hurts 390
I circle your nest tonight 391
I am filled with you 391
Do not forget the nut 391
Keep walking 391
Walk to the well 391
The rose laughs at my long-looking 391
Two hands, two feet, two eyes, good 391
Seeing you heals me 392
What keeps you alive without me 392
Lost to one who seems not to care 392
Last night you left me 392
There is no greater turbulence 392
The world is an open green 392
36 Orion: The Hunter 393
My love hides on the path 393
I thought of you 394
Our eyes do not see you 394
After being with me one whole night 394
There is a channel between voice and presence 394
Day ferments 394
You have said what you are 394
Why all this grief and turning pale 395
Someone who sees you 395
Step barefooted on the ground 395
Those of you in the nightsky above the moon 395
A secret turning in us 395
So delicate yesterday 395
If you have times when you do not ache with love 396
The one who is your being and your nonbeing 396
37 Leo: The Lion 397
This moment this love comes to rest in me 397
Courage: a gazelle turns 397
Again, I am within my self 398
Listen, if you can stand to 398
In the slaughterhouse of love 398
Being is not what it seems 398
When your love reaches the core 398
Who ever saw such drunkards 398
No intellect denies that you are 399
One day you will take me 399
Inside water, a waterwheel turns 399
From the wet source 399
I come to you, aching for you 399
We do not have to follow 399
There is a path from me to you 400
Your love kills Turk and Arab 400
You that trade the pearl 400
My essence is like the essence of a red wine 400
38 The Milky Way: Our Home Address Seen From the Side 401
At first, I sang and recited poems 401
When you confine, I am free 402
Listen to the presences inside poems 402
Drunks fear the police 402
Night goes back to where it was 402
Night comes so people can sleep like fish 402
A voice inside both of us sings out 402
The morning wind spreads its fresh smell 402
I am so small I can barely be seen 403
Where is a foot worthy to walk a garden 403
You speak and I start laughing 403
No one is ever depressed with you 403
I went to the doctor 403
Longing is the core of the mystery 403
Do not let your heart get rusty with grief 404
A piece of dry bread 404
In the night when union comes 404
Dust mote in sunlight 404
Colorless words come from red lips 404
Who cares what we call this thing 404
I have tested my friend 404
Moses had a strange shepherd's staff 405
Have you heard the old advice? 405
39 Bijou: The Black Hole 406
Who says the eternal being does not exist 407
When you feel your lips 407
A ruby with a sweet taste 407
Already tightly bound 407
Those on the way 407
I want a poet who cannot leave the friend 407
The sun is love 408
Do not let your throat tighten with fear 408
If I gave up sanity 408
I honor those 408
God only knows, I don't 408
I reach for a piece of wood 408
You are the pump of my pulse 408
Each moment you call me 409
Your love fills my chest 409
As you start out on the way 409
Dear mind, such a traveler 409
You have not noticed the tears of the poor 409
The friend lives in the lover's eyes 410
Every day your wind is blowing in my head 410
40 Columba: Noah's Dove 411
Never too many fish in a swift creek 411
An ecstatic seed planted anywhere on earth 411
I say, Bring the simple wine 412
The prophets were all commanded 412
I planted roses 412
I say what I think I should do 412
Eyes. You say, Keep them open 412
Secrets try to enter our ears 412
We are confused as lovers always are 413
Every day, this pain 413
The sun coming up brings clear wine-air 413
You come closer, though you never left 413
When you are with everyone but me 413
If your guide is your ego 413
Stay here today and tomorrow 414
The great ocean of the heart plays and spends 414
There is a soul within your soul 414
41 Draco: The Dragon 415
Whispering at dawn 415
I saw you last night 415
I want to hold you close like a lute 416
Someone who does not bloom 416
Something opens our wings 416
Christ is the population of the world 416
My ego is stubborn, often drunk, impolite 416
I will never look for somewhere else to live 416
Love comes sailing through and I scream 417
Much commotion at your door 417
The wine forbidden in this place 417
I hear you, and I am everywhere 417
No longer a stranger 417
I am a mountain 417
Your presence is a river 417
The one who is keeping time in me 418
Who is this that lifts and fills my heart 418
La Hawl, No Strength, calls out for grace 418
42 Capricorn: The Sea Goat 419
Lightning, your presence 419
The wind is what you say 419
Birdsong, wind 420
I love this giving my life to you 420
Held like this to draw in milk 420
Since I have been away from you 420
What I most want 420
Happy, not from anything that happens 420
Burning with longing-fire 420
Begin as creation, become a creator 421
I stand up, and this one of me 421
I cannot tell my secrets 421
A drunk comes in off the road 421
They say I tell the truth 421
Some souls flow like clear water 421
Love is a wine that ferments 421
Light wind of early morning 422
The moon rose but could not find us here 422
We have not walked in your rose garden 422
In the beginning touch was my music 422
43 Hercules: The Hero 423
When longing is sharp 423
Full moon. Quietly awake 423
Tonight we are getting love messages 424
Grapes under feet that crush them 424
Gone, inner and outer 424
Hunted down, yet hunter 424
What is real is you 424
I came and sat in front of you 424
Do not come to us without bringing music 424
Joyful for no reason 425
I was a tiny bug 425
Humble living does not diminish 425
You do not win here 425
Earlier, I promised myself 425
Step out on this road 425
The core of this wisdom 426
Love comes and fills my skin 426
Destiny does not obey our desiring 426
Inside the friend, where rose and thorn blend 426
Love's drum has no question 426
44 Pegasus: The Winged Horse 427
As long as I can remember 427
Drawn by your soul's growing 428
My turban, my robe, my head 428
At night you come here secretly 428
The secret you told, tell again 428
You were alone, I got you to sing 428
I have lived on the lip of insanity 428
There is no love in me without your being 428
We are the night ocean 429
Sometimes afraid of reunion 429
Two strong impulses 429
The wine we really drink is our own blood 429
Love enters 429
They end so quickly 429
They say it is night 430
Your love spreads into the sky 430
A nightbird in his rapture for the dark 430
In the beginning you pampered me 430
A human being is made of clay and sky 430
Wherever I touch my head to the ground 431
Shams is wine, but not the kind 431
45 Lepus: The Hare 432
Wine to intensify love, fire to consume 432
In complete control, pretending control 432
We donate a cloak to the man 433
You are cold, but you expect kindness 433
Wandering the high empty plain 433
Wine and stout 433
Lying back in this presence 433
Do not give me back to my old companions 433
You reach out wanting the moon 433
Sometimes visible, sometimes not 434
My work is to carry this love 434
Birdsong brings relief to my longing 434
When a storm sets love's ocean wildly in motion 434
You whisper into me 434
My king has gone 434
46 Canis Major: The Great Dog 435
Tonight, a singing competition 435
Tonight with wine being poured 435
The way of love 435
Let your throat-song be clear 436
I have phrases and whole pages memorized 436
Sometimes I call you wine, or cup 436
I was happy enough to stay still 436
I used to have fiery intensity 437
I run around looking for the friend 437
We search the world for the great untying 437
There is a desert I long to be walking 437
When the soul first put on the body's shirt 437
Slave, be aware 437
Which is worth more 438
Whoever drinks your love 438
Pleasures end 438
47 Bootes: The Herdsman 439
I saw grief drinking a cup of sorrow 439
Love lit a fire in my chest 440
Love is that that never sleeps 440
With your lips not here 440
Be fair. Admit that love has in it 440
You are from a country 440
Essence is emptiness 441
We are not afraid of God's blade 441
Come to this street 441
Soul seves as a cup for the juice 441
The mystic dances in the sun 442
This love is beyond the range of language 442
Leave, mind 442
Hallaj the whirlwind said, Anal-Haqq 442
You are gone from sight 442
48 Aries: The Ram 443
I want to be where 443
Would you like to have revealed to you 443
Love perfected and whole, you arrive 444
Spring overall 444
A drunk sees me coming 444
Rain falls on one man 444
Around and around all night 445
What's the lover to do 445
Last night the friend came to visit 445
My spirit saw how down and dull I was 445
This is how I would die 445
Someone who does not run 445
Looking at form delights you 446
Leap up and dance 446
Only if you deny yourself 446
49 Delphinus: The Dolphin 447
Flowers open every night across the sky 447
Do not think for a moment 447
A road may end at a single house 448
One who does what the friend wants done 448
A light wind coming downhill 448
My memory of your face 448
Your fragrance fills the meadow 448
How long are you going to beat me like a drum 449
I realize that the dawn when we will meet again 449
A bird delegation comes to Solomon 449
You thought union was a way 449
This mud-body is clear epiphany 449
The deepest grain markings in me are longings 450
Love weeps its grief 450
Do not withhold the good news 450
50 Cetus: The Sea Monster, Or Kraken 451
Spring paints the countryside 451
How will you know the difficulties 452
Rise. Move around the center 452
You walk in like you are about to say 452
Imagining is like feeling around 452
You that come to birth 452
Love swells and surges the ocean 453
Pale sunlight 453
In your light I learn how to love 453
You are the spring 453
Lovers in their brief delight 453
You that prefer, like crows do 454
I shoot a random arrow arcing up 454
Calm and rational 454
Since we see individuals 454
I hear nothing in my ear 454
Joy moves always to new locations 455
Any cup I hold fills with wine 455
When school and mosque and minaret 455
While you are still yourself 455
Your eyes, when they really see 455
51 Andromeda: The Chained Queen 456
Drumsound rises on the air 456
Stars burn clear all night till dawn 457
Do not sleep now 457
If you want what visible reality can give 457
Gamble everything for love 457
In a boat down a fast-running creek 457
What is this that gives pleasure in a form 458
I say, I will lift from your hand 458
The soul must suffer secrets 458
Love is the way messengers 458
Childhood, youth, maturity 458
Are you jealous of the ocean's generosity 459
Cypress moving, still, completely awake 459
Your confidence does not matter in this place 459
Dawn. As light becomes morning 459
It is as dangerous to refuse to help 459
A lover haunts the desert places 459
This is how it is with love 460
When you are poured in my empty glass 460
Someone who does not make flowers 460
If I hold you with my emotions 460
Midnight, but your forehead shines with dawn 460
I could not have known what love is 461
The soul fell into the soup of nature 461
Be clear and smiling 461
52 Scorpio: The Scorpion 462
Lo, I am with you always 462
There is a banquet where grains of wheat 463
You have so distracted me 463
Real value comes with madness 463
A bough with blossoms bears fruit 463
Poem, song, and story, the stream sweeps 463
Roses shine in the clay 464
Spring lightning, poems being sung 464
This season with the friend so near 464
The angel of death arrives 464
When you come back inside my chest 464
I called through your door 465
I set my heart out on the road 465
As the fig seller loves to sell figs 465
Whatever is cooking us 465
I, you, he, she, we 465
From cane reeds, sugar 465
Morning breeze, bring news of beauty 466
O heart, brighten yourself 466
You are inside every prayer 466
53 Sagittarius: The Archer 467
All our lives we have looked 467
Last night things flowed between us 467
When I remember your love 468
As essence turns to ocean 468
There is a way of breathing 468
Lovers gather and give each other shade 468
The rose took from another presence 468
Whoever loves 469
You are in my eyes 469
Do not analyze enthusiasm 469
If you want money more than anything 469
You are not a slave 470
We start out from absence 470
The heart keeps an image of the friend 470
Anyone who walks with us 470
Now I lay me down to stay awake 470
I do not regret how much I have loved 471
I am here again 471
54 Pisces: The Fish 472
The first morning air brings the presence 472
I claimed my eyes 473
I placed one foot on the wide plain 473
I used to be shy 473
People want you to be happy 473
Revelation came to Muhammad 473
Why let daily things bother you 474
The work is always inside you 474
You are inside meaning 474
I am blessed with faith 474
These words I say do not belong to me 474
Be a falcon with how you go straight to the point 475
I am the soul in a hundred thousand bodies 475
If you could be master of yourself 475
I am so close, I may look distant 475
Today, you have been inside my eyes all day 475
How long shall we delight in these shapes 475
A lover is not a Muslim or a Christian 476
As long as my soul is in this body 476
You are an ocean in a drop of dew 476
Come, come, whoever you are 476
Acknowledgments 477
Notes 479
Note on These Translations 489
Index of Familiar First Lines 490
_____________________________________________________________
ISBN: 9780061905827; ISBN10: 0061905828; HarperOne, 2010, - 512 p.
http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Rumi-Big-Red-Book-Coleman-Barks/?isbn=9780061905827
http://www.amazon.com/Rumi-Masterpiece-Celebrating-Mystical-Friendship/dp/0061905828
PREVIEW: http://books.google.com/books?id=Qyofbe8JTbYC
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT (p. 477):
"I would like to acknowledge the help with many things, the quatrain references in particular, of Sergey Sechiv of Southfield, Michigan. Sergey has translated The Essential Rumi into Russian."
http://books.google.com/books?id=Qyofbe8JTbYC&q=sechiv