A New Rule

[Rumi]

It is the rule with drunkards to fall upon each other,

to quarrel, become violent, and make a scene.

The lover is even worse than a drunkard.

I will tell you what love is: to enter a mine of gold.

And what is that gold?

The lover is a king above all kings,

unafraid of death, not at all interested in a golden crown.

The dervish has a pearl concealed under his patched cloak.

Why should he go begging door to door?

Last night that moon came along,

drunk, dropping clothes in the street.

"Get up," I told my heart, "Give the soul a glass of wine.

The moment has come to join the nightingale in the garden,

to taste sugar with the soul-parrot."

I have fallen, with my heart shattered -

where else but on your path? And I

broke your bowl, drunk, my idol, so drunk,

don't let me be harmed, take my hand.

A new rule a new law has been born:

break all the glasses and fall toward the glassblower.

*found in All Poetry