Ishq

“Water derives its color form the vessel that holds it.”

~~ Sufi Al-Junaid of Baghdad

moon4sufiBehold the Moon, she loves the Sun so deeply,
that all we see of her
is the solar light of her beloved
reflecting off of her lunar surface,
otherwise dark and invisible.

How pleased the Sun must be,
to behold such a blushing beauty –
to know that of himself –
his own disclosure,
manifested within another
so supplicant
as his moon.

With such burgeoning love,
all the moon comes to know of herself
is the source which fulfills its desire
which blushes her cheeks.

Thus, the Sun and Moon,
become indistinguishable
in the shared singular light.
Mirror images,
each mirroring the other.

The Moon speaks,

What else can I be
but the reflection of my Beloved,
what else then is my Beloved,
besides that which illuminates
my own hearts essence.

And so the Divine One
Presented humans with the Cosmos
so that their human hearts might look up and observe
these celestial bodies,
and take lesson.

What I see within the heart of another,
is my heart looking into itself.

It is God’s “plan of reflection,” that two thus exist
so that God’s pure light
is reflected in and by both.

A vision of oneself
with the psycho-physical faculties of oneself
is a State of Solitude
and Attribute of Aloneness.
It is meditative Gnosis of Self

When the place of vision is shifted
through the presence of another
Their relationship itself
fulfills the archetype of that union we seek with
God.

The conjoined reflection itself,
finds a Deeper State of Solitude
within the nexus of a placeless place.
And this nexus is in the Heart.

 

So what of the Moon and the Sun, themselves
In their solitude – how do they reconcile
Divine and Human love?

From Gnosis of Self
The seeker within the lover
moves toward Gnosis of Universe
then Gnosis of God.

‘–   from Ghanood to Adraak
to immersive Warood
Then Kashaf
a key turns
Fatah of Shahood
Then fana al fana
toward fana fillah
Silent
AllaHu
wa Baqaa billah  –‘

As the gaze of
the supplicant lover
and the beheld beloved
volley in the same light between them,
their love for the other
ponders the archetype of there being “no other.”

Who then to love, if the Sun and Moon become one
how are they to be none-other to each other,
if there is no “other.”

So begins the haj and jihad between
Ishq-majazi (Love of Gods Creation) and Ishq-haqiqi (love of Truth)
The Moon and Sun seek haqiqi with None-other but God
but have majazi for no other but each other
Can the moon and sun unite
to dissolve “other-ness”
Or does the annihilation of self (other) in majazi
become idolatrous?

Perhaps, the Sun and Moon
are alone as one with each other,
but One Alone In God.

Nothing can be more truthful
than beholding with the heart,
that which cannot be seen with the eyes
It is God’s indescribable light
streaming through.

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Posted in essay, love poems, Poems Beyond Their Words | 2 Comments

On Beloveds: 25 Words Away From Truth

There are pearls in you
So I’ll slip without splash
Into the pools between your lashes
For the eyes have depths
Only lovers can dive.

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What is forgotten

olive fields

Olive fields in Alentejo, Portugal

What is forgotten
Is easily replaced
All else remains, divine
quiet rings of ripples last
long after the Beloved’s pebble cast
to vanish beneath the water line.

From the still axis
a deeper message heard
in the silence,
between the echo,
rising in the azure
on the thermal rise
where prayers go.

A deluge of words
wails the ears
and not a drop
to quench the drought
or bathe away
salt-powdered tears.

Soundless
is the river drift
That carries us
through parted lips
Home to harvest
the black fruit orchards
dotting the red walled fields
where the divine rain falls
and the fertile heart yields.

Where it’s buried
cracks the seed
to grow and ripen on the vine
then plucked and pressed,
and poured in cup,
ripens in the drunkards mind.

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I Followed a Writer Up a Tree

autumwritten
I followed a writer
up a prodigious tree
Every leaf I brushed,
his poem.

From the crown
I scanned the pastoral
a poetic landscape in repose,
A resplendent chorus of
Glistening verdant wisdom.

O’ vast vibrato of sibilance
slipping the breaths of
Thalia and Melpomene!
Alight by dusk, I lingered.

Comes the long wind of winter
to undress each tree!
So from my aerie,
through gaunt branches,
I could see…

The low-slung place
where each poem fell
I thought, “here so many,
clothed in so much comedy
and tragedy…
recite their odes
of heaven and hell.”

And down I climbed
and away I walked
Over quiescent leaves
while red and russet
ran from their dendritic veins
Moldering into the palette
of dormant memories.

O’ even now
The sweet scent of decay
Reminds me of Spring
when I will climb again.
From the rot of the roost
to the dust below boots,
by the pen of the winter writer
Spring will come again.

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The Mind is Lumber: Twenty Five Words Away from Truth

I climbed the highest tree
within the forest of my mind…
only to look down
to find my heart at it’s base,
holding an axe.

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Divine Inkling: Twenty Five Words Away from Truth

We were given but a divine inkling
of what lies beyond mystery
so that our minds might imagine
what only our hearts know for sure.

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Who is Poet: Twenty Five Words Away from Truth

Some of us
just write the poems
we hear in the hearts of others,
so tell me then,
who is poet
and who is listener?

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The Writing Hand is Raised a Slave

“Such tiny hands,” he said
shoving elephantine thoughts
Into them
wielding such power –
knife clutching,
caressing, pen.

He took his eyes off the screen
for a moment,
to watch them go. He pondered,
“Long is the journey along nerves
from heart to paper,
nothing can be squandered.”

One day his hands will die
having bled for God and country
having spit and wept
along the path
tapping time
from the tip of his fingered infancy.

To the top of his wrist,
where youth dons hero’s cloak
stirring loins in angst
fire carriers of thrumming tribes
whose eye’s purl water
from the smoke.

Then up arm and shoulder
shuffles age, a road
along his neck, that forks
where one goes south
where memories start,
the other towards the forgotten north.

Fateful, the besieged tellurian
Seeking whence his end began,
A northern throne for
a southern heart
thereupon ascends, proclaims
“I’ve come to free this writing hand.”

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Posted in Poems Beyond Their Words, poetry | 1 Comment

Heart becomes the sun

Helix Nebula

Helix Nebula

Heart becomes a blood dense sun
Consuming all of anyone
come to take a seat beside
or to sacrifice their burdens.

Goes the ghosts into the pyre
soften, silent from the ire
consuming even their own ashes
magnesium memories in the fire.

Until love fumes spheres of aural stars
hums distant in the cradling dark
cuddled, lost, yet guiding lights
Hu remembers where you are…
when where has forgotten
who you are.

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Into the Company of Shadows

Educate our hearts before we speak our minds.
For it is we who keep our shadow company,
not our shadow ours.
I try to catch the latest news,
Lest otherwise,
I become rolled over by it.

And I heard the hiss
Of venomous spinners,

“We must arm ourselves to the teeth…
Kill them all! Bomb them all!”

Such comely pundits,
coated in makeup and gloss,
to read incendiary scripts from teleprompters,
to incite and heap bricks of lead
to tip their side of the scales of Justice.

Smoke speaks before fire,
then soon after comes the flame,
and then the wind of sentiment
to fan the inferno.

But who will speak low and soft of love?
Where are the healing eyes
and empathetic ears of poets past
who dipped their feather pens in compassion
and caressed messages, as
balms for our wounds?

Why do we taint the inherent scripture of mankind
with rhetoric and reaction
by those who seek to study the chaff
and not the wheat of a communal harvest?

Our great leaders have gone softly
into their nights…
battle weary
and brittle by war.

So if a bomb explodes at the Café I plan to visit today –
who will avenge my death
and who to see to the seeds I’d sewn
for compassion and peace?

Pray not these men and women on prime media payroll
and those of privileged wealth
and inherited power
who climb the backs of soft singing nightingales
to cackle the message of crows.
I’m none of these.

I was born of the womb,
and crawled to a walk, and thereon
through forests, and mountains, and shores,
shared with all things visible.

My heart rises and falls and races with beauty
and aches with darkness.
I fade, feeling the color run from my hair
and the suppleness of my skin
to dry and wither.

I watch my children quiver
like green leaves on the lithe limbs of youth –
fearing their fall,
but adoring their verdant energy.

All man is by nature equal
before the rise of knowledge –
and as the kingdom rises within each human being,
who will he take for a sage
and who for a fool?

Lo’ we must focus the light in our hearts
before we speak from our darkening minds.
For it is we who keep our shadow company,
not our shadow ours.

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