This cry of the reed is fire, not wind; whoever lacks this fire, let him be nothing.
آتش است این بانگ نای و نیست باد / هر که این آتش ندارد نیست باد
Âteş est în bâng-i nây u nîst bâd / Her ki în âteş nedâred nîst bâd.
Rumi, Masnavi I/9.
The reed was cut from the reed bed.
Its voice comes from that cut.
A reed without a wound gives no sound.
Rumi warns:
Do not take what you hear for air.
It is fire.
Pain and music
come out of the same hole.
Fana (passing away) is this cutting.
Union is the voice born of that cut.
All of Rumi's poetry
trembles between these two:
separation and reunion.