quatrain 79

From sunlight, two versions of quatrain #79:

This piece of food cannot be eaten,
nor this bit of wisdom found by looking.
There is a secret core in everyone
not even Gabriel can know by trying to know.

-- Version by Coleman Barks
"Unseen Rain"
Threshold Books, 1986

yearn for the bite
you cannot swallow
search for the knowledge
that doesn't exist
there is a secret
hidden in the heart of holy men
seek that
which God's angel can't

--Translation by Nader Khalili
Rumi, Dancing the Flame
Cal-Earth Press, 2001