Monday, March 31, 2014

I curl inside the otherness of make-believe and live there.
Sometimes I close my eyes & write letters to you in the dark of my mind.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Too much, too bright, too powerful

Stared a little too hard at the ocean this morning and it got to me. Waves breaking, horizon calling, winds howling.

It's odd. This wanting of an intangible. I want the ocean. I do not want to be at sea. I want the edges. I want the white foam of the breaking waves, the ghost of a line, the salty whiff.

Who trembles at the sight of a metaphor anyway?

Monday, March 24, 2014

Salt

Sea breeze is magic by itself. The iridescent ocean with its endless horizon though is something else altogether. Something about the white sand, the great ships with gulls about them, something about open skies over the water, how two expanses meet in an imaginary line. Inviting in its rawness, terrifying in its vastness. 

You want to fling yourself into the water, swim to the edge, stand on the horizon and fall into the sky. Ascension into the great beyond. Restful release. 

But the grave is also an ocean. 

‘Umar Ibn Al-Khattaab (ra) said:
“There are four types of oceans:
passion is the ocean of sins,
the nafs is the ocean of desires,
death is the ocean of lives,
and the grave is the ocean of regrets.”

Saturday, March 22, 2014

A Necessary Autumn Inside Each - Rumi

You and I have spoken all these words, but as for the way
we have to go, words

are no preparation. There is no getting ready, other than
grace. My faults

have stayed hidden. One might call that a preparation!
I have one small drop

of knowing in my soul. Let it dissolve in your ocean.
There are so many threats to it.

Inside each of us, there's continual autumn. Our leaves
fall and are blown out

over the water. A crow sits in the blackened limbs and talks
about what's gone. Then

your generosity returns: spring, moisture, intelligence, the
scent of hyacinth and rose

and cypress. Joseph is back! And if you don't feel in
yourself the freshness of

Joseph, be Jacob! Weep and then smile. Don't pretend to know
something you haven't experienced.

There's a necessary dying, and then Jesus is breathing again.
Very little grows on jagged

rock. Be ground. Be crumbled, so wildflowers will come up
where you are. You've been

stony for too many years. Try something different. Surrender.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Into The Wild

Beneath shadowed trees, between gnarled roots
Darkened cool of dampened earth
This wide berth of forgotten earth
This soft hush, velour reserve

I withdraw in this green enclave
Caving in its fragrant maw, here I thaw
Into mossy feelings 
Of wordless whisperings

Light pierce the canopy
I lay in its yellow glare
Its bothersome rays of jovial mare
Trespass my mellow turf

While time whiles away, heedless I stay
With hazy dreams of gentle gladness
While the darkening day swallows 
the trail home, I say;
      Let the dark face my wild soul
      In this wilderness, I am home.

Thursday, March 13, 2014

You watered me with fire

Wind will carry these ashes, and my flimsy fortress of stillness will be no more.

What comes after nothing though? Then again, a treasure lost is a treasure lost. All empty possibilities, nothing but smoke in the wind. 

Fire burns long, but even stars burn out.
No one ever meant to feel the way they feel. 

I am resigned to these bouts of gripping dark. But why should I choose the world and move on with the Sun?

I prefer this decay. For now.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Ego


Nouman: "There's this culture among young muslims, who go on a religious journey. Who had a change of heart, re-discovered Islam. So what happens, they become very serious about religion. Very, very passionate. And they find themselves a teacher. Sometimes that teacher is a person, lectures on youtube, websites, blogs etc. Whatever it is they find themselves a source that they associate as THE authentic source for taking knowledge. And as they become passionate, slowly they become very rigid, tough. They start noticing the people around them are not the same way as they are, not understanding the deen the way they understand it. What happens is, first they become frustrated with the people around them, especially their family. A friction develops. And then friends. But those friends didn't take a religious journey as you did, or if they do, it's not the same journey as yours. They're not as rigid about certain things as you are. So it becomes harder for you to tolerate that, you question them a lot more. So you start making it a point to tell them the 'right way' of doing things. And this youth think themselves doing 'amar ma'aruf nahi ala mungkar'. After all they're telling the brother/sister a hadith, an ayah. They're doing a good thing. This is something they should be doing. This is what's going on in their head. What they don't realize however is, that there's something going on."

So, I would like to say sorry to everyone I've offended.

Saturday, March 1, 2014

In plain sight

I still hope, despite myself, despite everything, that you would miss me. That you would miss me in the vague way that one would occasionally wish for it to rain so that it matches one's mood. Or for the Sun to suddenly say hello on an overcast day. That you would think of me like a sudden burst of wild flowers by the roadside. Or the sweet singing of a bird briefly perching near you. Or just the common blue sky of a mild-weathered day. 

That memories of my words would fondly slip into your reveries. You don't even have to tell me that you miss me, as long as occasionally you spare a thought for me. That I am acknowledged as a distant, dear friend of yours. Like a faded photograph in an album you would sometimes leaf through.

As for me? I will miss you like the moon, throughout the night when you won't see me, throughout the day when you can't see me. Despite myself, despite everything.