To forge a sonnet is an art supreme; It begs a certain clarity of thought To court a shy yet unrelenting theme And groom it in apparel that is brought By aptitude and skill with written word; To gaze into suspended space and time And trap a flight of fancy in a bird That preens its wings to alternating rhyme: Three quatrains, then a couplet at the end To tenderly and mercifully wean You from the shady branches that extend A dozen roses from the fertile green Imagination of a sonneteer, More captivating than the subject here.
Tree of Time
The yellow and gold,
Like drops of the sun,
Do glow in the days
Before they are done;
The orange and red,
And purple and black
Appear instead
To temper the lack
Of green on the scene,
For what isn’t green
Is rather begotten
By hues in between;
This tall tree of time
Forever believes
To bear generations
Of leaves upon leaves.
Now do we not bloom
In spring, to be green
In summer? Come fall,
Are hues in between;
That when we are old
Like drops of the sun,
Are yellow and gold
Before we are done
In winter’s embrace,
So this tree may bear
Our children by grace
When spring’s in the air.
A Change of Heart
The blood on her cheek, the steel in her eye,
No, she wasn’t weak, was his turn to cry;
He wanted to read the words he had heard,
She showed him ablution; he softly concurred
And sat down to read from parchment upon
Which writ were the words of Majestic Quran.
The beauty that shined in His heart through his eye
Expanded his mind as wide as the sky;
It spoke to his heart with nothing between
And washed every part of it till it was clean.
And all he had wrought: the cries of the slave,
The innocent coos of the child in her grave,
All fell from his eyes and streamed down his face
To signal the rise of another in grace;
He made for the house of al-Arqam with haste,
No doubt in his mind, not a moment to waste,
And when he arrived, he knocked on the door
And waited what felt like some moments before
It opened and there before him did stand
The man who he sought extended his hand,
Then grabbing his belt, he drew Umar near
And asked him to make his intentions all clear;
So Umar complied in reverent tone,
At which did the prophet praise Allah alone;
The house of al-Arqam rejoiced when they heard
The son of al-Khattab had uttered the Word.
Song For The Lonely Old Man
Old man, lonely,
Lives every day with his only
Companion: the soft memories of his wife
That warm up his winter of withering life.
His people stop by to see
How he’s doing through kettles of tea,
As the evening sun yawns and goes down
On the old man in his old town.
Some day he’ll wake up to a dawn
And find all his weariness gone,
To walk with his love on meadows of green,
United together in laughter serene.
Old man, lonely,
Lives every day with his only
Companion: the soft memories of his wife
That warm up his winter of withering life.
Picnic
I sit on the concrete, on spirals of sand,
Just dangling my feet as I hold in my hand
A half-eaten apple, a gift from my son,
And watch the light dapple the sight of him run
Away from the waters, a smile on his face,
Toward me the thought on his tongue and he race,
His cousins are splashing about with their dads,
The sounds of their laughter and happiness adds
To all of the pleasure their grandfathers feel
While grandmothers, measuring sand on their heels,
Surrender their words of advice to the breeze;
And here is my son now, his hands on my knees.
The picnic is over, the mothers all smile,
For happy is mother if happy is child.
Loved
How do I know who loves me,
How would I know who does,
I wish I had a way to say
Who loves me now because
There’s times when I get lonely,
And no one seems to care
When standing at the door before
My tears is despair;
But I will never let in
This visitor that stole
So near with a blade that’s made
To cleave my very soul.
I’ve learned my Lord is nearer
Than I am to my brain,
So crush my body, grind my mind,
My soul will still remain.
It’s all that matters, matter
Does not matter at all;
What is, is not; what is not, is
What makes me stand up tall.
Before It's Too Late
The thing about apologies:
Can make them anytime,
It’s easy to say sorry for
Just any sort of crime;
The only time apologies
Are wasted on your breath
Is when the one they’re meant for has
Already tasted death.
So shed the weight of arrogance,
And swallow all your pride,
You’ll wish you had when someone has
Eventually died.
And know: it’s not for everyone.
To see a matter through
Is not a thing for children, it’s
What men and women do.
love, love and Love
How vain is a love that reason requires,
For reasons don’t live very long:
They thrive in a storm of capricious desires
And die when the wind isn’t strong.
And a love for no reason blows like a leaf
That floats on the whim of a breeze,
Wherever it blows, extinguishes grief
That those in its path it may please.
But love that is true stands firm as a tree
That sprouts from surrendering seed,
Its reason the One, eternal, and free
Of all that creation may need.
Like An Airplane
‘Eid Mubarak to children far and wide. Let your imagination be your favorite toy, and your conscience be your guide.
I can be almost anything
I want to be, that’s right:
A lion in the jungle with
A very frightful bite,
A tae-kwon-doh destroyer with
A roundhouse kick to match,
A gourmet chef of soups delish
Who makes a world class batch,
An airplane soaring in the sky
That even knows to land,
I can be almost anything
That I can understand,
In fact I can be more than all
Those things that I have said
Because I always have a toy
Idea in my head.
The sky above, my trusted friend,
The earth beneath my feet
Is but my heart’s companion
That never skips a beat.
I’ll tread upon it gently as
My prophet said I should,
It’s why airplanes up in the sky,
I think, are very good,
If they land the way they should.
The Last Ten Days Of Ramadan
Seek the night of power,
Search until you find
That barakah-filled hour
To leave your past behind;
Deliverance from the fire
Descending from the Throne:
Is there a mercy higher
Than standing up alone
These last ten nights of Ramadan,
The even and the odd,
When in the peace before the dawn
Goes forth the Will of God.