Come, Come, Whoever You Are by Rumi

Come, Come, Whoever You Are
traditionally attributed to Rumi, Abu Sa'id Abu'l-Khayr

Come, Come, Whoever You Are
Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.
It doesn’t matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vow
a thousand times
Come, yet again, come, come.

---

These are some of my favorite lines to open any gathering with, as lines of welcoming whoever we are, wherever we have come from in our lives — and I love the idea that “ours is not a caravan of despair.”

These lines are among the most-quoted in Sufi poetry in English, traditionally attributed to Rumi and inscribed on his shrine in Konya, Turkey. Contemporary scholarship, however, attributes them to Abu Sa'id Abu'l-Khayr (967-1049), a Persian Sufi mystic who predated Rumi by two centuries.