INTERNATIONAL RUMI YEAR (VIII)
"Only the holder the flag fits into and wind. No flag"

Keep walking, though there's no place to go to.

Don't try to see through the distances.

That's not for human beings. Move within,

but don't move the way fear makes you move.

No better love than love with no object,

no more satisfying work than work with no purpose.

If you could give up tricks and cleverness,

that would be the cleverest trick.

(trad. Coleman Barks e John Moyne)

(2007)

INTERNATIONAL RUMI YEAR (VII)
(September 30, 1207–December 17, 1273)
"Only the holder the flag fits into and wind. No flag"

Outside, the freezing desert night.

This other night inside grows warm, kindling.

Let the landscape be covered with thorny crust.

We have a soft garden in here.

The continents blasted,

cities and little towers, everything

become a scorched, blackened ball.

The news we hear is full of grief for that future,

but the real news inside here

is there's no news at all.

(trad. Coleman Barks e John Moyne)

(2007)

INTERNATIONAL RUMI YEAR (VI)
"Only the holder the flag fits into and wind. No flag"

I have lived on the lip

of insanity, wanting to know reasons,

knocking on a door. It opens.

I've been knocking from the inside.

The way of love is not

a subtle argument.

The door there

is devastation.

Birds make great sky-circles

of their freedom.

How do they learn it?

They fall, and falling,

they're given wings.

(trad. Coleman Barks e John Moyne)

(2007)

INTERNATIONAL RUMI YEAR (V)
"Only the holder the flag fits into and wind. No flag"

Stay together, friends

Don't scatter and sleep.

Our frienship is made

of being awake.

The waterwheel accepts water

and turns and gives it away,

weeping.

The way it stays in the garden,

whereas another roundness rolls

through a dry riverbed looking

for what it thinks it wants.

Stay here, quivering with each moment

like a drop of mercury.

In the slaughterhouse of love, they kill

only the best, none of the weak or deformed.

Don't run away from this dying.

Whoever's not killed for love is dead meat.

(trad. Coleman Barks e John Moyne)

(2007)

INTERNATIONAL RUMI YEAR (IV)
"Only the holder the flag fits into and wind. No flag"

Who makes these changes?

I shoot an arrow right.

It lands left.

I ride after a deer and I find myself

chased by a hog.

I plot to get what I want

and end up in prison.

I dig pits to trap others

and fall in.

I should be suspicious

of what I want.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,

there is a field. I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase each other

doesn't make any sense.

(trad. Coleman Barks e John Moyne)

(2007)

INTERNATIONAL RUMI YEAR (III)
"Only the holder the flag fits into and wind. No flag"

This poetry. I never know what I'm going to say.

I don't plan it.

When I'm outside the saying of it,

I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.

We have a huge barrel of wine, but no cups.

That's fine with us. Every morning

we glow and in the evening we glow again.

They say there's no future for us. They're right.

Which is fine with us.

(trad. Coleman Barks e John Moyne)

(2007)

INTERNATIONAL RUMI YEAR (II)
"Only the holder the flag fits into and wind. No flag"

I stand up and this one of me

Turns into a thousand of me.

They say I circle around you.

Nonsense, I circle around me.

When it's cold and raining,

you are more beautiful.

And the snow brings me

even closer to your lips.

The inner secret, that which was never born,

you are that freshness, and I am with you now.

I can't explain the goings,

or the comings. You enter suddenly,

and I am nowhere again,

Inside the majesty.

(trad. Coleman Barks e John Moyne)

(2007)

International Rumi Year - 800th anniversary of the birth of Mevlana Celaleddin-i Belhi-Rumi (Maulānā Jalāl-ud-Dīn Balkhī Rūmī), poet and philosopher (1207-1273)

Mawlānā Jalāl-ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhi (Rūmī) (Persian: مولانا جلال الدین محمد رومی, Turkish: Mevlânâ Celâleddin Mehmed Rumi, Arabic: جلال الدين الرومي, shortened to إبن الرومي), also known as Mawlānā Jalāl-ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī (Persian: محمد بلخى), but known to the English-speaking world simply as Rumi, (September 30, 1207–December 17, 1273), was a 13th century Afghan (Tājīk) Muslim poet, jurist, and theologian. His name literally means "Majesty of Religion", Jalal means "majesty" and Din means "religion". Rumi is a descriptive name meaning "the Roman" since he died in Anatolia which was part of the Eastern Roman Empire two centuries before.

Rumi was born in Balkh (in present-day Afghanistan, then a city of Greater Khorasan in Persia) and died in Konya (in present-day Turkey). His birthplace and native language/local dialogue indicates a Tajik (Persian) heritage. He also wrote his poetry in Persian and his works are widely read in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and in translation in Turkey, Azerbaijan, the US, and South Asia. He lived most of his life in, and produced his works under, the Seljuk Empire. Aside from his Persian poetry, he also wrote some verses in Arabic, Greek, and Oghuz Turkish.

Rumi's importance is considered to transcend national and ethnic borders. Throughout the centuries he has had a significant influence on Persian as well as Urdu and Turkish literatures. His poems are widely read in the Persian speaking countries of Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan and have been widely translated into many of the world's languages in various formats.

After Rumi's death, his followers founded the Mevlevi Order, better known as the "Whirling Dervishes," who believe in performing their worship in the form of dance and music ceremony called the sema. (continua aqui)

"I died a mineral, and became a plant. I died a plant and rose an animal. I died an animal and I was man. Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?"

"Do you think I know what I'm doing? That for one breath or half-breath I belong to myself? As much as a pen knows what it's writing, or the ball can guess where it's going next"

"I used to want buyers for my words. Now I wish someone would buy me away from words. I've made a lot of charmingly profound images. Scenes with Abraham, and Abraham's father, Azar, who was also famous for icons. I'm so tired of what I've been doing. Then one image without form came and I quit. Look for someone else to tend the shop. I'm out of the image-making business. Finally I know the freedom of madness. A random image arrives. I scream "Get out!". It desintegrates. Only love. Only the holder the flag fits into and wind. No flag". (trad. Coleman Barks/John Moyne)

(2007)