By Yunus Emre

We entered the house of realization,

we witnessed the body.

The whirling skies, the many-layered earth,

the seventy-thousands veils,
we found in the body 

The night and the day, the planets,

the words inscribed on the Holy Tablets,

the hill that Moses climbed, the Temple,

and Israfil’s trumpet, we observed in the body.

Torah, Psalms, Gospel, Qur’an-

what these books have to say,

we found in the body.

Everybody says these words of Yunus

are true. Truth is wherever you want it.

We found it all within the body. 

Yunus Emre, tr. Kabir Helminski and Refik Algan in The Drop That Became The Sea: Lyric Poems of Yunus Emre (Shambhala, 2000). Copyright © 1989