Who Says Words With My Mouth?

Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi 1207 (Balkh) – 1273 (Konya )



All day I think about it, then at night I say it.
Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.

This drunkenness began in some other tavern.
When I get back around to that place,
I'll be completely sober. Meanwhile,
I'm like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary.
The day is coming when I fly off,
but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?
Who says words with my mouth?

Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?
I cannot stop asking.
If I could taste one sip of an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.
I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way.
Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.

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.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 14, 2023

59 sec read
317

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABXXX XXXXXXX XBXXCX CAAX
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 893
Words 190
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 5, 7, 6, 4

Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi

Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī also known as Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī, and more popularly simply as Rumi, was a 13th-century Persian poet, faqih, Islamic scholar, theologian, and Sufi mystic originally from Greater Khorasan in Greater Iran. more…

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