I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
     flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
     went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy
     bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

A lane of Yellow led the eye
Unto a Purple Wood
Whose soft inhabitants to be
Surpasses solitude
If Bird the silence contradict
Or flower presume to show
In that low summer of the West
Impossible to know -

What was said to the rose that made it open was said
to me here in my chest.

What was told the cypress that made it strong
and straight, what was

whispered the jasmine so it is what it is, whatever made
sugarcane sweet, whatever

was said to the inhabitants of the town of Chigil in
Turkestan that makes them

so handsome, whatever lets the pomegranate flower blush
like a human face, that is

being said to me now. I blush. Whatever put eloquence in
language, that's happening here.

The great warehouse doors open; I fill with gratitude,
chewing a piece of sugarcane,

in love with the one to whom every that belongs!

^{translated from the Farsi by Haleh Liza Gafori}

Come out, come close.
Why hide? Why deceive?

You are me and I am you.
Why get mired in me’s and you’s?

We are light upon light—
and the glass light passes through. 

Why muddy ourselves with a grudge?

Together, we are whole and complete.
Why see through eyes that split one in two?

Why do the rich look down on the poor?
Why does the right hand scorn the left?
Both are from one body.
Why call one vile and one blessed?

One essence, one intelligence 
thrust us into one curved cosmos.

Where the soul counts one,
the mind insists on two. 

Five senses, six directions—drop the lot. 
Leap forth. Let oneness 
draw you closer, and draw you in.  

There you are a gold mine,
not just a nugget of gold. 

There’s one spirit in countless bodies,
one oil in countless almonds,
one meaning in countless words 
uttered by countless tongues. 

Shatter the jugs. The water is one.

Steeped in union, the heart remembers 
a world beyond words.
Soul, send the news.