Some days when grief arrives in all its grays
When every flower in your garden dries
When laughter doesn’t burst with golden rays
And all the rains seem dammed up in your eyes
Go find yourself a rock to sit upon
To let your worries float upon a breeze
(If you can do this near the break of dawn
Around when dew has washed the tops of leaves)
Then coax your heart to journey back instead
To when a sad unbroken man sat down
To cleanse his sandals overcome with red
Derided, scorned and driven out of town
Take heart from him and dry your tears friend.
He is a rahmah to you till the end
Sonnet
Ulul Albaab
There’s a pumpkin seed here in my mouth
And it’s been all over I tell you
To the west and the east and the south
But it can’t scale the walls of hell. You
Can unleash the precision of teeth
You can buffer the motions of tongue
You can coax it to submit beneath
All the pressure from traps that you’ve sprung
Till the hull comes apart at the seam
And the kernel slips out in the open
As unbroken and green as a dream
If you like pumpkin seeds I’m hopin’
Ask the folks of the kernel about
Their reflections on getting it out
Keep Walking
Sometimes our search for answers leads us to
A clearing where answers do not live
We’re not to live there either, pass on through
To see what gifts the wilderness may give
This forest we call life is not so bad
The trees are there so we may find our way
To lie beside the river and be glad
Ingratitude will certainly delay
Our quest You see the answer may not come
As sweetly as a flower on a stalk
But rather as a dusty path that some
Old seeker must have chosen for a walk
As long as we keep walking we are blessed
Because the answer’s built into the quest
So Grateful
I often say I’m grateful but I think
The act of saying so acts like a charm
See all I want to say is that I’m glad
But “gratitude” can ward away the harm
If I were truly grateful for a thing
I’d fall upon my face and offer thanks
I wouldn’t find the time or rhyme to bring
Myself to publicize the sentiment
But on and on I go about how kind
The Lord has been to me in every way
While I am, simply said, out of my mind
With happiness, but don’t know how to say
I’m just a self-absorbed and petty lad
Who likes to say he’s grateful when he’s glad
On Retiring My Cardboard Box Companion
I still recall the day it came to us
A banquet spread within its cardboard ends
From kindly friends extremely generous
Whose generosity surpasses friends
We ate our sustenance from it that day
And then I couldn’t bear to throw it out
For its pronounced proportions found a way
To serve as stand-up desk for me somehow
For months it has endured my eager wrists
And offered steady berth to all my things
While silently inviting my digits
To tap their tips into a thousand wings
The blessings in a cardboard box are from
The generosity with which they come
Respectfully
A lot of things are said about respect
And all of its effects upon your heart
That beats a path to waters that reflect
The visage of your soul once you depart
Sometimes it means to rise from where you sit
To be, with the angelic order, one
Sometimes it means to let another spit
The final word and still your burning tongue
It means to let a rumor starve and die
Appoint your heart above what’s in your head
To weigh the need to ask the how and why
And leave unsaid what’s better left unsaid
Respect: it is the currency of souls
The passage widens once you pay the tolls
And all of its effects upon your heart
That beats a path to waters that reflect
The visage of your soul once you depart
Sometimes it means to rise from where you sit
To be, with the angelic order, one
Sometimes it means to let another spit
The final word and still your burning tongue
It means to let a rumor starve and die
Appoint your heart above what’s in your head
To weigh the need to ask the how and why
And leave unsaid what’s better left unsaid
Respect: it is the currency of souls
The passage widens once you pay the tolls
In Defense of Ibn Turab’s Verbosity
You tell me that I use a word too many
But words are much like colors, don’t you see
How pleased or how offended we’re by any
Diverging value or intensity
You paint a wall a certain shade of sky
Alaskan, Early Morn or Shooting Star
They’re blue if you just plan on getting by
But color-wise you won’t go very far
So when I use a hundred words to say
What you think just requires twenty five
You’ve only heard the quarter of a gray
That I relayed four times intensified
Our wordiness is hard on one who rues
The value and intensity of hues
But words are much like colors, don’t you see
How pleased or how offended we’re by any
Diverging value or intensity
You paint a wall a certain shade of sky
Alaskan, Early Morn or Shooting Star
They’re blue if you just plan on getting by
But color-wise you won’t go very far
So when I use a hundred words to say
What you think just requires twenty five
You’ve only heard the quarter of a gray
That I relayed four times intensified
Our wordiness is hard on one who rues
The value and intensity of hues
Son of Hātim
The scholars give their volumes up to hear,
The warriors, their arms, that they may touch,
The children, all their toys, to just be near,
This man. No man was ever loved this much.
And now ‘Adiyy bin Hātim, son of Tayy,
Of line defining generosity,
Found himself in Madinah standing by
A grandmother who kept his company.
He watched him standing on the dusty way
Conversing with that frailness bent with years,
Unhastening despite the long delay,
Attending, reassuring, calming fears.
‘Adiyy received more than he ever gave:
Came looking for the king and found the slave.
The warriors, their arms, that they may touch,
The children, all their toys, to just be near,
This man. No man was ever loved this much.
And now ‘Adiyy bin Hātim, son of Tayy,
Of line defining generosity,
Found himself in Madinah standing by
A grandmother who kept his company.
He watched him standing on the dusty way
Conversing with that frailness bent with years,
Unhastening despite the long delay,
Attending, reassuring, calming fears.
‘Adiyy received more than he ever gave:
Came looking for the king and found the slave.
Warm Floors
The winds just need an opening to blow
Into your secret rooms where you conceal
Your cryptic and subversive plans below
The floorboards creaking every time you kneel
The rains survey the weakness in your roof
And seek a path to fall into your space
Where moisture plays its wrinkles into truth
Well hidden in the patterns of your drapes
And where the wind and rain may find admission
There, the cold will follow in the end
To plunge your quarters into indecision
That oft accompanies the rain and wind
Repair the roof and windows, seal the door
And let your weary forehead warm the floor
Generous
When we consider generosity,
We think of those possessed of wealth and time
Who give with or without the vanity
That often taints a gift with hues of crime.
And then we hear the term afresh from those
Who saw its splendor in prophetic light,
For giving matters when the giver knows
The value of what’s given, all despite
The ignorance and bliss ingratitude
Of them who walk the earth in heedlessness
While harvesting the riches that accrued
Upon the breaths of those who do with less.
SubhanAllah is charity that turns
The world despite the punishment it earns.