I am a painter...

I am a painter,
Painting pictures all the time,
Yet when I set them near your beauty
I want to throw them all away.

I am a sculptor, carving images
and filling each with life,
Yet when I compare these with your beauty
I want to dump them in a fire.

O bringer of sweet wine,
Enemy of the sober,
You have laid waste to
every house I ever built!

My soul has merged with yours -
Water into water, wine into wine.
Now there is only love
and the scent of your rose perfume.

Every drop of my blood calls out,
"Dye me with the color of your love.
Make me the jewel of your affection."

In this house of water and clay
my heart is in ruins.
O Beloved, don't leave this house
else it will crumble to the ground.

--Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi
Version by Jonathan Star
"Rumi - In the Arms of the Beloved "
Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, New York 1997