Khalid Mukhtar

Word, like wind, cuts through you / Withers all but true you

Poetry

Fox, Persistent

· ·

Although this poem is crafted as a first-person account, I was not part of the experience recounted in it. Rather it is based on what I heard from the esteemed Dr. Umar AbdAllah in a lecture delivered recently at Darul Qasim. The scene is the lush campus of the Alqueria de Rosales in Southern Spain. 
These last few days, each day had we
A visit from a fox,
A quiet, handsome creature, he
Attended all our talks;
For when we’d set to congregate
Upon a grassy hill
To purposefully separate
Our hearts from chatter ill,
This beast was wont to venture near
Neath the temperate sun,
Day after day to persevere
In a skulk of one.
He caused us no distraction nor
To mischief he inclined,
But stood in grand inaction for
What pacified his mind.
Then on that peaceful night as we
Prepared ourselves for prayer,
We sensed a sweet serenity
Excite the silent air;
I do suspect our vulpine friend
Detected it as well,
How quietly did he ascend
The grounds I cannot tell.
However, witness may I bear:
He walked the straightest line
Between the crowds assembled there
And made an exit fine.
I think the blessed night of Qadr
Came upon us then,
Upon us and on every other
Creature in that glen.

Take Heart

· ·

My daughter blurted the phrase “leaves can have dimples” as part of an otherwise nonsensical conversation this morning. The silly phrase landed up defining the rest of my drive to work.

Even leaves can have dimples
If you know what dimples be
In the grand scheme of beauty
To a shy and simple tree.

Even rocks host a banquet
If you know what banquets be
In the grand scheme of gaiety
To a sunny rockery.

And when the tear-laden cloud
Crosses winds that blow and blow
Till it throws a thunder tantrum
As its tears begin to flow,

Then the dimpled smiles of leaves
And the feasting of the rocks
Make the cloud that sadly grieves
To ignore the wind that mocks.

Even clouds feel encouraged
If you know what courage be
In the grand scheme of being
To whatever tries to be.

So stop drowning in your worries
And take heart from what you see:
Even leaves can have dimples
If you know what dimples be.

On Sonnets

· · 

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.