Doorkeeper of the Heart

By Rabia al-Adawiyya

I am fully qualified to work as a doorkeeper, and for 

    this reason: 

What is inside me, I don’t let out:
What is outside me, I don’t let in.
If someone comes in, he goes right out again. 

He has nothing to do with me at all. 

I am a Doorkeeper of the Heart, not a lump of wet 

    clay. 

By Rabia al-Adawiyya, translated Camille Helminski in Women of Sufism: A Hidden Treasure, Writings and Stories of Mystic Poets, Scholars and Saints (Shambhala Publications, 2013)