That Journeys Are Good
by Rumi

 
If a fir tree had a foot or two like a turtle, or a wing,
Do you think it would just wait for the saw to enter?

You know the sun journeys all night under the earth;
If it didn't, how could it throw up its flood of light in the east?

And salt water climbs with such marvelous swiftness to the sky.
If it didn't, how would the cabbages be fed with the rain?

Have you thought of Joseph lately? Didn't he leave his father in tears, going?
Didn't he then learn how to understand dreams, and give away grain?

And you, if you have no feet to  leave your country, go

Into yourself, become a ruby mine, open to the gifts of the sun.

You could travel from your outer man into your inner man.
By a journey of that sort earth became a place where you find gold.

So leave your complaints and self-pity and internalized death-energy.
Don't you realize how many fruits have already escaped out of sourness into sweetness?

A good source of sweetness is a teacher; mine is named Shams.
You know every fruit grows more handsome in the light of the sun.

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