“I feel the source of the power of Rumi’s spontaneous poetic derives from his continual balance of surrender and discipline, his visionary radiance held in the level calm of ordinary sight. Splendor and practice, meditation and chore—somewhere in the dynamic of those lies the vitality and validity. . . .

The universe and the light of the stars come through me. (fana)

I am the crescent moon put up over the gate to the festival. (baqa)

The “crescent moon” is undoubtedly some plywood device nailed over the fairground entrance. Baqa often includes a little joke about the grandeur.”

—Coleman Barks, from the introduction to The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems, 2001.