Silence 

By Mansur Hallaj

Silence, then taciturnity, then dumbness;

       and knowledge, then finding, then burying;

And clay, then fire, then light;

       and cold, then shadow, then sun;

And hard ground, then coast, then desert, 

       and river, then ocean, then dry;

And drunk, then sober, then longing;

       and proximity then union, then intimacy;

And contraction, then expansion, then vanishing;

       and separation, then joining, then extinction.

These are expressions for the people to whom

       the world is equivalent to a penny.

And they are voices beyond the door, but

       even nearby the words of mortals mumble.

The last of things to which a man returns, 

       when he reaches the limit, are destiny and self.

For mortals are the slaves of their desires,

       and the truth of Truth is holy when made sacred.

By Mansur Hallaj, translated by Carl Ernst, in Hallaj: Poems of a Sufi Martyr (Northwestern University Press, 2018) English translation copyright © 2018 by Carl W. Ernst. Published 2018 by Northwestern University Press. All rights reserved.