The Utterance of the Stars

[One time at night in a high spot on Çamdağı (the Pine Mountain) near Barla I was looking at the face of the heavens when the following lines suddenly occurred to me. With the imagination I heard the speaking of the stars through the tongue of disposition, and that is how the lines were written. I do not know the rules of versification, so they written not according to the rules but as they occurred to me. The piece has been taken from the Fourth Letter and from the last part of the First Stopping Place of the Thirty-Second Word.]

The Utterance of the Stars

Then listen to the stars, listen to their harmonious address!

See what wisdom has emblazed on the decree of its light!

All together they start to speak with the tongue of truth,

They address the majesty of the All-Powerful One of Glory’s sovereignty:

We are each of us light-scattering proofs of the existence of our Maker;

We are witnesses both to His Unity and His Power;

We are subtle miracles gilding the face of the skies

For the angels to make excursions on;

We are the innumerable attentive eyes of the heavens

That watch the earth, that study Paradise; [^9]

[^9]:That is, innumerable miracles of power are exhibited on the face of the earth, the seedbed and tillage for Paradise, and the angels in the world of the heavens gaze on those miracles, those marvels. And like the angels, the stars, which are like the eyes of the heavenly bodies, gaze on the finely fashioned creatures on the earth, and in so doing look at the world of Paradise. At the same time they look on both the earth and Paradise; they observe those fleeting wonders in an enduring form in Paradise. That is to say, there, there are prospects of both worlds.

We are the innumerable exquisite fruits that the hand of wisdom of the Beauteous One of Glory has fastened

To the celestial portion of the tree of creation, to all the branches of the Milky Way;