"Where did the handsome beloved go?" - translated by Brad Gooch and Maryam Mortaz
This poem questions where and unknown subject has gone. Rumi gives them many forms to present her trouble in figuring out where they have gone. She is ultimately questioning where 'the handsome beloved' went, describing him as a cyprus tree, tall with an attractive shape. She repeatedly questions where he went and where without her.
Rumi describes the condition of her heart, as it shakes alone in the middle of the night. She talks of going along to the road to ask a passer-by, to ask the gardener, the watchman even. She searches in the meadows, comparing herself to a madman. She contemplates where the deer in the meadow went and where a tiny pearl, her tears, disappeared to in the ocean. Throughout the night she asks the moon and Venus where the handsome beloved's face has gone to.
The dilemma she presents is, if he is her beloved, why is he with other people, and what us the place named 'there,' where he went. If he has died and gone to be with God, where is it he went? She finally asks Shams of Tabriz, where her beloved went.
Love is the Water of Life
Rumi says that everything, except for the love for God, is purely eating sugar. She questions the pain of the spirit and states that to move forward towards death without seizing up, you should hold the Water of Life.
Love is the Master
Rumi tells the reader that love masters everything and that she is mastered by Love herself, by the very passion of love she has for love. She has been ground up like sugar. She tells the wind she is only like a piece of straw when in front of it and questions how she can tell where she be blown next.
She notes that anyone who claims they made a deal with Destiny lies, because we are all simply straw in the wind. She questions how anyone could make a deal with a hurricane.
She also says that God is working his Resurrection, and asks how we can pretend to make our own actions. She describes herself as being like a cat in a sack when in the hands of love, being lifted sometimes, flung sometimes and then also swung around His head.
She says she has no peace in this world or any other, and that those who love God are in a rushing river, surrendering themselves to Love's commands, and that they trun day and night like mill wheels, crying out.
