“What I Say Makes Me Drunk” (Rumi)

The beloved grumbles at me, Come on, Come on. But which way do I go to that one?

Torches at the door. Who’s there? I am. The one asking from inside and the one

walking up to the door, who steals the doorknob.

Oil and water together, how can I be whole? I am like this hair, all strands and hiding places.

Yet out in the open too like the moon. I look around the house for the one who stole my clothing, with the garment thief’s head laughing

through the open window.

I try every possible way out, where I have been free of this cage now, since…ah…eternity. What I say makes me drunk.

Nightingale, iris, parrot, jasmine, I speak those languages, along with the idiom of my longing for Shams Tabriz.