In “Like This” by Rumi, it reads kind of like a friend giving advice to another. It also feels like the middle of a conversation between two lovers figuring out how they want to be intimate with each other and why before doing an intimate deed. In particularly the lines about “…the old poetic image about clouds gradually uncovering the moon, slowly loosen knot by knot the strings of your robe.” its making reference to the pale skin under the robes being revealed slowly and comparing that to the beauty known by all that is the moon. That feels like a very intimate moment in time when a lover sees the whole naked body for the first time, because being naked could also be construed as emotional nakedness, not just the physical and it takes time and is a slow process. Almost like the author is saying, let’s take things slow to get to the emotional state of naked with one another first to figure out what love is for between them.
It is where he believes the soul is, in that request for initamancy and if it is denied then it would return to themselves and closed up, “The soul sometimes….walk back into my house.” The soul almost reaches out to the lovers soul but if the lover isn’t forthcoming then they recede back in on themselves.
In my opinion my interpretation would be no different if composed by a non-Muslim and non-Iranian poet, that is if we can trust the translations and that’s a difficult thing to just assume is correct. The reason for knowing it would be no different is that Muslim and Iranian individuals have the concept of love and caring for each other as lovers. It is a tragedy that English tends to write out the Muslim portion of the poetry, because to have it in its original context it would probably be even more beautiful.
After all of this, I could not stop comparing this poem to the song “I want it that way” by the Backstreet Boys (the url is included to the music video in case you wish to listen to it). The major difference between the two is that the Backstreet Boys is more about the heartache of the possible ending to a relationship. They are similar in their desire of telling their lover the way in which what they want something to be for their worlds and attempting to (re)connect on a deeper level than just staying on the surface.
Lauren Hamilton
Introduction to Poetry 