Let’s Love Each Other

By Rumi (translated by Haleh Liza Gafori)

Let’s love each other,
let’s cherish each other, my friend,
before we lose each other.

You’ll long for me when I’m gone.
You’ll make a truce with me.
So why put me on trial while I’m alive?

Why adore the dead but battle the living?

You’ll kiss the headstone of my grave.
Look, I’m lying here still as a corpse,
dead as a stone. Kiss my face instead!

(This is from the weekly email digest of The Marginalian (formerly Brain Pickings by Maria Popova).