Love is a fragment of verse, the rest will never be written

From Neera

There is no exile for you from me or for me

From you

Come back, come back to the circle of my arms

Rumi

“The minute I heard my first love story,

I started looking for you, not knowing

how blind that was.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.

They're in each other all along.” 

― Rumi, The Illuminated Rumi

From The Glance by Rumi

Being closer and closer is the desire 

of the body. Don't wish for union!

There's a closeness beyond that. Why

would God want a second God? Fall in

love in such a way that it frees you

from any connecting. Love is the soul's

light, the taste of morning, no me, no

we, no claim of being. These words

are the smoke the fire gives off as it

absolves its defects, as eyes in silence,

tears, face. Love cannot be said.

from Neera

Instead of opening the door, you could have said the time was wrong

You didn't, your mercy made the day golden, flowers

​​​​​Showered on my desire

 

You live impossibly far away now, take this distance further

Neera, don't you remember the scene by heaven's river?

In your light I learn how to love, 

In your beauty, how to make poems. 

You dance inside my chest,

Where no one sees you,

But sometimes I do,

And that sight becomes this art.

- Rumi

from 'A Thirsty Fish' by Rumi

I don't want learning, or dignity,
or respectability.

I want this music and this dawn
and the warmth of your cheek against mine.

The grief-armies assemble,
but I'm not going with them.

This is how it always is
when I finish a poem.

A great silence comes over me,
and I wonder why I ever thought
to use language.

(translated by Coleman Barks, from The Essential Rumi published by HarperCollins)