Sonnet

Some days it feels the journey isn’t worth it
Those are the days to dig your heels in deep
And if you need a sign look to the earth, it
Keeps going while the going’s there to keep
So take a breath my Qasimi sojourner
And give your weary eye a little rest
Seek out your willow that will shade a learner
Whose body mind and soul are in the quest
Think to when he the best of all creation
Reclined against that old devoted tree
His face supplying all the recreation
That his companions would ever need
    May leisure quench your spirit yielding strength
    To grow and serve throughout the journey’s length

Why so much love for them that part from you
They give no thought to how they’ve grieved your mind
Such love for things that leave the way they do
But not for them that choose to stay behind
Don’t shun the shine upon your blessed bean
God’s plan is in all things that shed and fall
Be hair or fur or leaves that once were green
They all submit obeying nature’s call
So why so sad my khalid at this loss
When all it really is, is wholesome gain
You know that your beloved won’t be cross
If you yourself have chosen to remain
  Some surfaces are meant to be some day
  A field of cranium for children’s play

Despair comes knocking often in these times
Its droll and dreary beat upon your door
Conjuring up images of your crimes
Until your shattered heart can take no more
khalid acknowledge your deficiencies
While there’s no good in lying to yourself
Your mad frustrations only serve to please
The demons wishing ill upon your health
But sit upon a rock and let the air
Remind you of the one who’s heart was filled
With grief that his beloved wasn’t there
To nurse him when a rain of stones had stilled
  The heavens sending prayers upon a man
  Content revived and pleased with Allah’s plan

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

There’s a pumpkin seed here in my mouth
And it has been all over I tell you
To the west and the east and the south
But it can't 'scape the brace of its shell. 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 am hopin’)
    Ask the folks of the kernel about
    Their reflections on getting it out

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

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

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

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