Word, like wind, cuts through you / Withers all but true you
Highland Park Poetry’s Jennifer Dotson interviewed me last week about my book, In The Warmth of The Shade. We talked about how it all began, @FonsVitae, publishing, 9/11, @shaykhamin, @DarulQasim and even about my good friend @ushakur :-).
And I read a few poems from the collection.
There, ‘now’ and ‘instantaneous’
And all things thought spontaneous
Fall short of what His Mighty Qadr brings
For there, no time holds sway upon
The One who lets the dusk and dawn
Be signs for praise a slave of Allah sings
Inspired by Shaykh Amin‘s exegesis on the ‘Arsh
The waters of mirth can stifle the soul
Glide up to the sun, catch a breath
Return to its shores to lie on the gold
And breathe the remembrance of death
Beware of the times you do good
It comes with a peace as it would
And it fills you with feelings
Delivers you reeling
With joy that you did what you could
But that glee burns a chink in the armor
And the devil does strike where it stings
Then you sweetly impute
All the good that you did
To whatever your intellect brings
Now the meaning I try to convey
Isn’t meant to inhibit the doing
Just know all you do
Is a trial to you
For the Doer is watchfully viewing
The repentant ones know
What to think when they find
Such a volume of snow
On the driveway, but mind
It’s a ploy of the devil
To make you to sigh
Till your hopes all dissolve
In the blink of an eye
But the penitent know
That for every vice
An Astaġfirullāh
On your breath will suffice
So pass on the snowblower
Suit up and start
With your istiġfār shovel
And peace in your heart
When the fast slows down
And the night turns to pray
With its children as one
All five moons away
Consider now “man” an adjective
To mean less a beast and more man
Then take its comparative, “manner”, a proof
That a word comes about by a plan
Dignifying the language of man
The things that we find mundane
We hear them again and again
Repetitive, boring
And set to inducing
All manners of snoring
Are often all matters decreed
That we may be heedful to heed
What comes into view
Through the lens of tawḥīd
My first collection of poems was released yesterday by Fons Vitae. Alhamdulilah.
Also available on Amazon.com.