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
Sonnet
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 so 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 a king and found a 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.
Body
The ummah is as one body.
We wonder where the hate we see begins;
We blame the haters and their mentoring,
But seldom see the damage that our sins
May wreak upon the hearts they’re entering.
We hate our children when we fail their cause;
We hate our spouses as we burden them;
We even hate our siblings, all because
We give our selves a love we cannot stem.
So hear the words the minbar sends our way:
“Allah! He does not change a people who
Refuse to change their selves.” Should we not say,
Your family should matter more than you?
A thorn on Cherry Street by any means
Can cause a vein to hemorrhage on Deans.
Response
It’s true that sticks and stones may break my bones
But words are such a different projectile
For even do the deadliest of drones
Annihilate the living in a while
But, words: they lodge themselves within a heart
In some dark corner that the jinn know well
And there they linger as a poison dart
Secreting the intoxicants of hell
Remember now when he with tongue so mild
Had turned, a brokenhearted man, to Ṭāʾif
To be rejected, driven and reviled
In what was then his weakest time in life
Yet when the wrath of angel sprang above
He held it back with words of patient love
But words are such a different projectile
For even do the deadliest of drones
Annihilate the living in a while
But, words: they lodge themselves within a heart
In some dark corner that the jinn know well
And there they linger as a poison dart
Secreting the intoxicants of hell
Remember now when he with tongue so mild
Had turned, a brokenhearted man, to Ṭāʾif
To be rejected, driven and reviled
In what was then his weakest time in life
Yet when the wrath of angel sprang above
He held it back with words of patient love