Instincts are born
In intelligence refined
Through years of experience
That carpets the mind
So slip off your shoes
Leave them at the door
And sit down awhile
Upon the warm floor
Poetry
Sandstorm Consolation
Sometimes a storm must blow
To send a grain of sand into my eye
All that so I can know
It only takes a speck to make me cry
Wrong Turns
How far do you have to stray
To see that you’ve lost your way
Umm
It isn’t her words
That turn in my head
But the manner and care
With which they were said
For mothers say things
The way that they do
To show you how love
Can carry you through
If you don’t remember
Your mother then she’d
Want you to be son
To the mothers you need
Go study their lives
Go read what they said
In words like sweet butter
That melts on warm bread
Humbly
Don’t pray for humility
Lest it bring a trial
But pray in humility
And sit there a while
‘Abd
With time we come around to see
That freedom from all slavery
Is only ever found to be
In slavehood under Al-Aliyy
Who takes a soul to set it free
All quite paradoxically
Striving Friend
Patience, my striving friend
Obsessing with beginnings, don’t be
Heedless of the end
Abandon all your fears
To build yourself a raft that keeps you
Floating on your tears
Hear out the caring warner
Your moment’s almost here, it’s right
Around the cosmic corner
Remain well-mannered slave
Each step until you step into
Your cold and lonely grave
This Love
This love is when you hear a name
And can’t hold back a tear
Because of all that someone did
Before you landed here
This love is for a voice you haven’t
Heard, a face not seen
And ways and manners witnessed in
Descriptions of a scene
This love is like the grief the son
Of Rabāḥ felt down deep
When words that once rang out of him
Could only make him weep
So khalid don’t be sad if all
Your love is shallow streams
Its waters drain the plains to reach
The ocean beyond dreams
Gift rapped
The thing about guidance is you
Have to want it more than whoever
Wants you to find it true. Never
Has a seeker failed to find
So long as heart beats over mind
Al-Waliyy
He who leans on the means
Will bend in the end
Use the means by all means
But know your Friend is the end