Yunus Emre

Yunus Emre - Büyükçekmece, Istanbul

Let a word mature inside yourself.
Withhold the unripened thought.
Come and understand the kind of word
that reduces money and riches to dust.

-Yusuf Emre
from The Drop that Became the Sea
Good quote for a writer, don't you think?

While Rumi is technically my favorite Sufi poet, I find Yunus Emre interesting too. Some of his verses about love and destiny are just breathtaking. Others? Very didactic.

The poem above, for example, is really refering to peaceful coexistence. Here's the entire section:

A single word can brighten the face
of one who knows the value of words.
Ripened in silence, a single wordacquires a great energy for work.

War is cut short by a word,
and a word heals the wounds,
and there's a word that changes
poison into butter and honey.

Let a word mature inside yourself.
Withhold the unripened thought.
Come and understand the kind of word
that reduces money and riches to dust.

Know when to speak a word
and when not to speak at all.A single word turns a universe of hell
into eight paradises.
Follow the Way. Don't be fooled
by what you already know. Be watchful.
Reflect before you speak.
A foolish mouth can brand your soul.

Yunus, say one last thing
about the power of words—
Only the word "I"
divides me from God.

See? I was reading happily along, and then he refers to himself in third person?

There might be a reason for that though. No one is sure of who this guy really was, if he was one person, or a group of people. (Hey! In the 13th century, all kinds of village people might have written this stuff.) The ambiguity makes him even more interesting, legendary, which is not a bad thing at all, IMHO.