' Seeing Your Face '...

I swear, since seeing Your face,
the whole world is fraud and fantasy
The garden is bewildered as to what is leaf
or blossom.

The distracted birds
can't distinguish the birdseed from the snare.

A house of love with no limits,
a presence more beautiful than venus or the moon,
a beauty whose image fills the mirror of the heart.



- Rumi, from The Divani Shamsi Tabriz XV,
version by Coleman Barks