Khalid Mukhtar

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.