A Story They Know | Rumi Poem

This poem by Rumi suggests a radical call to transformation and awakening. It speaks of joining a chain of those who challenge the status quo, giving up old structures, and undergoing a deep inner transformation. It describes a journey from the confines of a familiar, limited world (the world vat) toward a threshold (the lip) where a truer self is born. Through inversion, stillness, and the dissolution of ego, the poem describes the unfolding of an eternal love and a sacred, hidden treasure within.

Mawlana Jalaluddin Mohammad Balkhi, popularly known as "Rumi", is a 13th-century Sufi poet. Today, he is recognised as one of the greatest poets who ever lived, due in part to how his words seem to speak to the divine.

Photo by Henrique Ferreira.
Translation by Coleman Barks.

Transcript

It is time for us to join the line of your madman all chained together. Time to be totally free and estranged. Time to give up our souls, To set fire to structures and run out in the street. Time to ferment. How else can we leave the world vat and go to the lip? We must die to become true human beings. We must turn completely upside down, Like a comb in the top of a beautiful woman's hair. Spread out your wings as a tree lifts in the orchard, A seed scattered on the road, A stone melting to wax, Candle becoming moth. On the chessboard a king is blessed again with his queen. With our faces so close to the love mirror, We must not breathe, But rather change to a cleared place where a building was, And feel the treasure hiding in us. With no beginning or end, We live in lovers as a story they know. If you will be the key, We will be the tumblers in the lock.