…here swimming ends always in drowning
This beautiful poem of Rumi I came across while watching a video of Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee “A Dangerous Love” which caught my eye because of the title.
“How can love be dangerous”, I thought…
Subtle degrees
of domination and servitude
are what you know as love
but love is different
it arrives complete
just there
like the moon in the window
like the sun
of neither east nor west
nor of anyplace
when that sun arrives
east and west arrive
desire only that
of which you have no hope
seek only that
of which you have no clue
love is the sea of not-being
and there intellect drowns
this is not the Oxus River
or some little creek
this is the shoreless sea;
here swimming ends
always in drowning
a journey to the sea
is horses and fodder
and contrivance
but at land’s end
the footsteps vanish
you lift up your robe
so as not to wet the hem;
come! drown in this sea
a thousand times
the moon passes over the
ocean of non-being
droplets of spray tear loose
and fall back
on the cresting waves
a million galaxies
are a little scum
on that shoreless sea
— Version by Daniel Liebert
(no ode number given)
“The Rumi Collection”
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