Rumi on Refinement

An Invisible Bee

Look how desire has changed in you,
how light and colorless it is.

with the world growing new marvels
because of your changing. Your soul

has become an invisible bee. We
don't see it working, but there's

the full honeycomb! Your body's height,
six feet or so, but your soul rises

through nine levels of sky. A barrel
corked with earth and a raw wooden

spile keeps the oldest vieyard's wine
inside. When I see you, it is not so

much you physical form, but the company
of two riders, you pure-fire devotion

and your love for the one who teaches you;
then the sun and moon on foot behind those.

* * *

While I typed this poem, which makes me feel like the difficult soul work that's gone on in me was more than grandiose delusion, I felt the warmth in my heart grow and break into my chest with tiny cataclysms of ecstasy. Through 9 levels of sky.

This translation, by Coleman Barks, is part of a collection called The Glance, Songs of Soul Meeting.