Sometimes This, Sometimes That 

by Jalaluddin Rumi

I saw a tree and a fire, and heard
a voice that said, “I am the Beloved,” 
calling me from the fire. Am I Moses? 

I entered the desert in tribulation
and found there manna and quails.
It has been forty years now that like Moses
I have wandered in this desert. 

Do not ask about the boat and the sea. 
Come, behold that for years
I have been sailing my boat in this dry land. 

Come, O Soul! You are Moses and in Your hand 
this body becomes a staff,
and when You throw it, I become a serpent. 

You are Jesus and I am
the bird You made of clay.
As You breathe in me I come alive and fly. 

I am the stone pillar of that mosque 
which the Prophet leaned on for support; 
now his support is elsewhere, 
and I lament this separation. 

O Lord of the lords and faceless Maker of faces! 
What face are you ordaining for me?
I know You know, and I do not. 

Sometimes I’m stone and sometimes iron; 
at other times I’m all fire.
Sometimes I’m a balance without a weight; 
sometimes I’m both weight and balance. 

Sometimes I graze here,
and at other times they graze on me.
Sometimes I’m a wolf, and sometimes I’m a ewe,
yet at other times I am the very shepherd.

They seemed important, these signs,
but how could they ever last?
Neither this nor that will last,
and only He to whom I belong knows what I am. 

By Jalaluddin Rumi (Divani Shamsi Tabrizi 1414), translated by Kabir Helminski and Ahmad Rezwani, in Love’s Ripening: Rumi on the Heart’s Journey (Shambhala Publications, 2008)