Above a fog of reason,
Beneath a cloud of rhyme,
You’ll find the windy season
Of poetry sublime.
Anytime.
Till We Meet Again
Inspired by this picture, which made the rounds on Twitter a couple days ago.
No mother should see her child die.
No father should bury his child.
But death is no guest to deny
Or turn away unreconciled.
There lives a prophetic example
Of how such a grief may be borne
Through tears in quantities ample
That help mend a heart that is torn.
Yes, weep for the memories cherished
And weep for the times that you miss,
Remember, to honor the perished,
The warmth of each hug and each kiss.
We grieve at the sad separation;
Though every ocean is spanned,
The journey may need preparation,
But know what awaits us is grand.
So let every teardrop flow
In waters of hope come together
To carry us where we must go
Through every gambit of weather.
And there be united again
To never feel burdened by breath,
No grief and no worry of when
For time is the last pick of death.
We pray that our children live long,
To bury us while they are strong.
Recalling an old poem
In the last forty-eight hours, three instances of death have me thinking about this post from many years before.
The rough similarity of these three unrelated individuals to the three characters in my poem is uncanny to say the least. Reality bites.
Sapling
I just learned about the tragic passing of an old friend’s little son. Tears.
We come from The Ever Living, and to The Ever Living we return.
I still remember wondering about
Whence came this little sapling in my care,
I planted it with all my love without
Withholding any love that I could spare.
I’d tend to it each morning when the dew
Exchanged itself for drops of golden sun,
And as the nightly veil of darkness drew,
I’d gaze upon the beauty I’d begun.
But yesterday, a storm aroused my fears
And tore my little sapling from the earth,
And all my loving care and streams of tears:
All proved to be of very little worth.
I saw last night within a timeless hour
My sapling blossoming a fragrant flower.
Tamir Rice, Peace
Not a toy
But a gun
In the hands
Of the one
You can trust;
Yes, you must
With your all.
Then you fall:
All that trust
Up in flames
Of disgust,
As you lay
In the dust,
Someone’s son.
Not a gun
Just a toy
In the hands
Of a boy.
Now he’s dead
Cut by lead,
Burning deep.
Can you sleep
As they weep
For the loss
Of a life
That you slayed
From the palm
Of your hand?
And then killed
Him again
With a law-
Mocking pen.
Is this all
We have for
Tamir Rice?
Tyrants
This poem was written for (“by”) one of the characters in my first novel, Tyrants.
Of all the tyrants big and small,
We come, the meekest of them all,
For all oppression that we do
Comprises that which leads us to
Exalt the means above the end,
Betray the trust of trusting friend,
Abandon love that comes to aid,
Or flee the mess our weakness made,
To stress the bonds of love well tried
Until two kindred hearts divide,
Or turn upon ourselves in hate
Begrudging much that seals our fate.
Of all the tyrants big and small,
We come, the meekest of them all,
I cringe to think what we might be,
Were we to wield more tyranny.
Winter Remembrance
The signs to love God and His beloved are everywhere. Looking over the prairie on a gloomy Saturday, I felt this rush of words fall in a sonnet. SallAllahu ‘alayhi wa Sallam.
My heart is as the prairie, dry and dead;
Though withered by the kiss of autumn winds,
It welcomes drops of rain that fall instead
Reminding me of my surviving sins.
But somewhere through the prairie flows a stream
Of sweet remembrances: a name, a face,
A man whose love for me surpasses dream,
A love that thrives beyond all time and space.
All death is winter, silent, cold and still,
All life is spring where hearts revive, immersed
In love and faith, beat patiently until
The waters of the fountain slay all thirst.
I long to drink my fill from hands I know
Will take me to my Lord, won’t let me go.
Next
What we wish we could undo
Was meant
To be,
To shape our present,
To fashion an impetus
For what we do next.
Silence
Be silent to say a thing,
And listen to explain it.
An audience deaf to silence
Requires mutes to train it.
On Separation
To see a flower open into sun, To hear the crack of dawn in sparrow's tweet, To breathe the sounds of children having fun Through syncopated pats of toddler feet; And then to leave that all behind to join The wheel that swallows everything it finds To spin its labor straw into a coin As shiny as its meal of chewed-up minds; It's hard upon a silent, weary eye That misses hearts long dead and longer cherished, That knows no inability to cry And cries so long as longing hasn't perished. The solemn rite of weeping in the rain Is all a fool for love can hope to gain.