Destruction and restoration

When a tailor cuts the cloth for a garment piece by piece,
does anyone strike him,
saying, "Why have you torn this choice satin?"

Whenever the builders repair an old building,
don't they first ruin the old one?

Likewise the carpenter, the blacksmith, and the butcher—
with them too there is destruction before restoration.

The pounding of the myrobalan
becomes the means of restoring the body to health.

Unless you crush the wheat in the mill,
how will there be bread on your table?

 

Mathnawi IV:2348-2353
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance"
Threshold Books, 1996