Sultan, my Sultan, at every moment

Doing different things,

This world Your garden plot, You keep

Planting sorrow in those You love.

Never do anything wrong, the moment

Of death is closer to you

Than you are to yourself,

Death burrows in the roots and origins

Of us all, we are the soil of death.

While you are still here, do endless good

Before it is time to go there,

Souls do not stay forever in bodies,

They just journey here a few days.

The questioning angel comes

Tearing up the earth as he asks,

“Who is your God?”

Since my soul heard of this,

My bones have not stopped aching.

Those who know God's unity, those

Who surrender the self to truth

Are not dead, their souls all still

Swim in the lake of love.

I have seen the friends of God fly away

As they drank the brimming cup of love,

Never mind that the truth

Lets them do whatever they want,

Their heads are still bowed.

If you are a true servant to the friends of God,

You die within Him as

So many friends who have come and gone,

Yunus, now it is time to be His friend.

* * *

(From: Yunus Emre: His Life and Selected Poems written and edited by Faruk Dilaver)