Topic: Entering the Shell

[Jaharkta]

Entering the Shell

Love is alive, and someone borne
along by it is more alive than lions

roaring or men in their fierce courage.
Bandits ambush others on the road.

They get wealth but they stay in one
place. Lovers keep moving, never

the same, not for a second! What
makes others grieve, they enjoy!

When they look angry, don't believe
their faces. It's spring lightning,

a joke before the rain. They chew
thorns thoughtfully along with pasture

grass. Gazelle and lioness, having
dinner. Love is invisible except

here, in us. Sometimes I praise love;
sometimes love praises me. Love,

a little shell somewhere on the ocean
floor, opens its mouth. You and I

and we, those imaginary beings, enter
that shell as a single sip of seawater.

Rumi


Ghazal (Ode) 843
Version by Coleman Barks, with Nevit Ergin
"The Glance"
Viking-Penguin, 1999

[mayflow]

It works better for me to format it like this:

Entering the Shell

Love is alive, and someone borne along by it
is more alive than lions roaring or men in their fierce courage.

Bandits ambush others on the road.
They get wealth but they stay in one place.

Lovers keep moving, never the same, not for a second!
What makes others grieve, they enjoy!

When they look angry, don't believe their faces.
It's spring lightning, a joke before the rain.

They chew thorns thoughtfully along with pasture grass.
Gazelle and lioness, having dinner.

Love is invisible except here, in us.
Sometimes I praise love; sometimes love praises me.

Love, a little shell somewhere on the ocean floor, opens its mouth.
and You and I  and we, and those imaginary beings,,,

Enter that shell as a single sip of seawater.

Rumi

[littlefeather]

 
When you read it both ways, each one seems different.  It's almost
like I am reading 2 different poems.

[Jaharkta]

Hmm, you have a point, May! You should write Coleman Barks. Don't know why he broke it up that way.

[daphne]

When you read it both ways, each one seems different.  It's almost
like I am reading 2 different poems.

Yes, me too!! Like 2 different poems. Interesting... perhaps could have something to do with it being a translation? I would assume the translater would keep to the same 'cadence' (is that what is called so in poetry?) as the original. The rhythm and spacing of each way, bring to me a different "feel".