Doorways

The great 13th century poet, Rumi, was born in Afghanistan, which at that time was part of the Persian empire. Rumi has long been a talisman poet for me, but it is only recently that I learned that the word dervish literally translates as doorway.


My favorite book of Rumi's poetry is a slim paperback of his Quatrains as translated by Coleman Barks. Coleman visited the MacDowell Colony many years ago when I worked there, and I love having a volume inscribed by the man who has spent his life studying Sufism and translating Rumi.

Language is so fascinating, and translation is truly an act of intimacy. Scholarship is coupled with reverence, but the actual choosing of the right word to convey a particular meaning is itself a moment of poetry. I imagine a word humming when the right companion in another language is chosen, vibrating on the page.

Here is one of my favorite of the Quatrains, something I recite to myself sometimes when I can't get to sleep:

Some nights stay up till dawn,
as the moon sometimes does for the sun.
Be a full bucket pulled up the dark way
of a well, then lifted into light.
-- Rumi