The City of Saba by Rumi

There is a glut of wealth in the City of Saba.Everyone has more than enough. Even

the bath stokers wear gold belts.Huge grape clusters hang down on every street and

brush the faces of the citizens. No one has to do anything. You can balance

a basket on your head and walk through an orchard, and it will fill by itself with

overripe fruit dropping into it. Stray dogs stray in lanes full of thrown-out

scraps with barely a notice. The lean desert wolf gets indigestion from the rich

food. Everyone is fat and satiated with all the extra. There are no

robbers. There is no energy for crime, or for gratitude, and no one wonders about

the unseen world. The people of Saba feel bored with just the mention of prophecy.

They have no desire of any kind.Maybe some idle curiosity about miracles, but that’s

it. This overrichness is a subtle disease. Those who have it are blind

to what’s wrong and deaf to anyone who points it out. The City of Saba cannot be

understood from within itself: But there is a cure, an individual medicine, not

a social remedy: sit quietly, and listen for a voice within that will say, *Be

more silent*. As that happens, your soul starts to revive Give up talking and

your positions of power. Give up the excessive money. Turn toward teachers and

prophets who dont live in Saba. They can help you grow sweet again and fragrant

and wild and fresh and thankful for any small event.

Source

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother’s breast,
As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night ’tis my pillow white,
While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,
Lightning, my pilot, sits;
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits;

Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,
Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The Spirit he loves remains;
And I all the while bask in Heaven’s blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,
When the morning star shines dead;
As on the jag of a mountain crag,
Which an earthquake rocks and swings,
An eagle alit one moment may sit
In the light of its golden wings.
And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,
Its ardors of rest and of love,

And the crimson pall of eve may fall
From the depth of Heaven above,
With wings folded I rest, on mine aery nest,
As still as a brooding dove.
That orbed maiden with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the Moon,
Glides glimmering o’er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn;
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,
May have broken the woof of my tent’s thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,
Like a swarm of golden bees,
When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.

I bind the Sun’s throne with a burning zone,
And the Moon’s with a girdle of pearl;
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,
Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,–
The mountains its columns be.
The triumphal arch through which I march
With hurricane, fire, and snow,
When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair,
Is the million-colored bow;
The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove,
While the moist Earth was laughing below.

I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
And the nursling of the Sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.
For after the rain when with never a stain
The pavilion of Heaven is bare,
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams
Build up the blue dome of air,
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
I arise and unbuild it again.

I want to live through in each vain moment
And in its honor I must spread my song
And laugh with my delight and shed my tears
When she is sad or when she is contented.

And thus, when afterward comes looking for me
Who knows what death, anxiety of the living,
Who knows what loneliness, end of the loving

I could say to myself of the love (I had):
Let it not be immortal, since it is flame
But let it be infinite while it lasts.

By Vinicius de Moraes. Translated by Ashley Brown, in “An Anthology of Twentieth-Century Brazilian Poetry”, Wesleyan Univertsity Press

If you like reading my posts, you must consider subscribing to Silence Feed via email or feed reader.

The transcript will follow the link to audio recording:

The audio recording of the poem in voice of Moen Akhtar can be heard by clicking here

Bacha Bacha Borha Borha hal hamara janay ha
Vote nahin data par ghar pa aa jata wo khanay ha

Lahori pehchan na pai dosri bar aaye hain
Mian Sahab kaisa hain ab Jeddah Sara Janay ha

Seat adjustment aise hoye aik seat pa ab do bathain ga
Kaisa ghusain ga ab ik sofay ma wo he bachara janay ha

Wana FATA ki polling ka hal batain kaisa tumhay
Vote parain ya hon ga dhamakay sirf Hazara janay ha

Phir sa Wazeer-e-Azam hoga kon bhala is dharte
Mush ko koi Khabar he nahi ha Bush bechara janay ha

Qazi ki ankhoon ma hain ansoo
Fazloo bolay ko ko ko

Kaisa Mukhalif Leader ha ya
Ik ik tara janay ha

Chaudry chup hain cycle par aur kehta ha har voter sa
Lahori na manay par Gujrat to sara janay ha

If you like reading my posts, you must consider subscribing to Silence Feed via email or feed reader.