One Seed of Grain

My body formed of clay is but the heart’s chalice,

My ideas thought out are but the heart’s new wine.

Knowledge, all of it, is a seed in the heart’s trap. 

This I say, but the message comes from the heart.

A free translation of Rūmī’s quatrain #260, Foruzanfar, ed.; 

pg 37 in Houshmand’s Moon and Sun; 

quatrain #1162 in Gamard’s The Quatrains of Rumi.

این شـکل سفالین تنم جـام دلست

واندیشـه پختـه ام مـی خام دلست

این دانـه دانش همگی دام دلست

این من گفتـــم ولـیک پیغام دلست

īn shekl-e sefālīn-e tanam jām-e delast

vandīsha-ye poxta am mē-ye xām-e delast

īn dāna-ye dānesh hamegī dām-e delast

īn man goftam valīk pēghām-e delast.

)Try your hand at reading the Persian words to get a feel for the sounds. The letters are pronounced as in Latin except for gh (a sound like a French r), x (like the Greek xi), and the short a as in “cat.” (

A literal translation:

This form of clay of my body is the cup of the heart.

And my mature thought is the raw wine of the heart.

This grain of knowledge entirely is the trap of the heart.

This I said, but [it] is the message of the heart.

This poem is a good follow-up of the poem in the last posting. Both are about the heart and about knowledge. What makes today’s poem different is the word dām [دام] “trap.”

There are all kinds of traps for all kinds of reasons—good and bad. Traps are for catching things you want to get rid of like mice or thieves or for catching things you want to keep like a rare butterfly or a lover. You’ll have to decide what kind of trap Rūmī is talking about.

What is the bait? A seed of grain dāna [دانه], in this case, a grain of dānesh [دانش], which means knowledge, even wisdom. Why knowledge? Is knowledge a pitfall? Does it sidetrack you on the way to the heart? Can it be used to eliminate those who are so blinded by knowledge that they are unfit, as unfit as new wine is to drink?

In the poem of the last posting, knowledge gained through book learning was put away. In this poem we must understand what book learning and rational thought can and cannot do for us on our journey. Along the way there are epistemological rabbit holes undreamed of by Alice. As interesting as any of these might be, they are traps, I think, for we are not dealing with logical arguments here. We are dealing with mysticism, where logic and our knowledge of this world are no longer useful. This is difficult stuff and perhaps Rūmī is showing us how to understand this stuff not with our minds but with our hearts To do this, he uses the music of his words, the hypnotic effect of repeated syllables and sounds, of that aspect of our soul that blooms with the perfume of song.