Rumi - I'm Light Within His Light

I circled awhile with each of the intelligences,
the nine fathers that control the levels of spirit-growth.
I revolved for years with the stars through each astrological sign.
I disappeared into the kingdom of nearness.
I saw what I have seen,
receiving nourishment as a child lives in the womb.
Personalities are born once,
a mystic many times.
Wearing the body-robe,
I've been busy in the market,
weighing and arguing prices.
Sometimes I have torn the robe off
with my own hands and thrown it away.
I've spent long nights in monasteries,
and I have slept with those who claim to believe nothing
on the porches of pagodas,
just traveling through.
When someone feels jealous,
I am inside the hurt and the need to possess.
When anyone is sick,
I feel feverish and dizzy.
I am cloud and rain being released,
and then the meadow as it soaks it in.
I wash the rains of mortality from the cloth around a dervish.
I am the rose of eternity,
not made of water or fire or the wandering wind,
or even earth.
I pay with those.
I am not Shams of Tabriz,
but a light within his light.
If you see me, be careful.
Tell no one what you've seen.

-- Ghazal (Ode) 331
Version by Coleman Barks
"Say I Am You" Maypop, 1994