One Breath

Lesson 352: One Breath

One breath from the breath of the Lover
would be enough to burn away the world,
To scatter this insignificant universe like grains of sand.
The whole of the cosmos would become a Sea,
And sacred terror rubble this Sea to nothing.
No human being would remain, and no creature;
A smoke would come from heaven; there would be no more man or angel.
Out of this smoke, flame would suddenly flash out across heaven.
That second, the sky would split apart and neither space nor existence remain.

- Jalal-ud-Din Rumi

(Translated by Andrew Harvey from A Year of Rumi)