Stillness

How much longer will this quiet last? I am not surrendering to this decay, I can't. 

Did Rumi feel this way when his Shams left and never returned? A kind of gaping, bloodless wound. An immolation of the heart. No wind, no breath, no song. 

Merely routine and a kind of supine rage.

Change

"We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person."
                                                                               ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Upon reading this, I thought of A. How Time hasn't been very kind to our friendship. There is resentment between us; I on her secretive nature and her on my...I do not know exactly what. Perhaps jealousy, but that is too much of an assumption.

For what it's worth, I still long for A. to reach back to me. It seems such a waste...all those years of company and suddenly nothing. Well, next to nothing. I love to be needed and it is a flaw. A kind of arrogance, a problem of the Ego.

Dear A. if you're reading this (though you undoubtedly don't), I revere still your artistry. To quote my best confession towards you (as you may still have that letter pinned to your board),

"I miss watching you draw

and stealing them into my memory.

If you enter my mind, there is a gallery

of every which drawing of yours I ever saw.

               Our mutual affection is a thing I ponder

               When my days turn sombre."

                                                                                ~Lonely Woods, 2012

Perhaps no longer mutual yet still. If you wish me by your side, I will be there. You need only ask.

p.s. Hello June.

Carefree

Sometimes you just need someone to show you how to be happy. How to be simple, how to be grateful, how to be kind both to your self and others.

And when these beautiful souls collide with mine, I am in awe. I'm a person of grand gestures, I will celebrate people I love with all that I have to give. Their happiness is mine. They bleed, I bleed.

If there is occasion for strength, I will be that strength. I will fail but I will try. For the love of God, for His Mercy, I want to always be reminded of people's kindness towards me, what blessings they are. All from Him.

The long road

How do you convince a person you care for them? By showing up, by being there, by keeping it together when all you want to do is break down with them. A wise friend once told me, the supporters in this world need support too.

God knows the tears that goes unshed for the sake of Love. 

The wind speaks no more

That I no longer scribble my longings & speak to the wind, I fear I truly am desolate. 

I am mired down. This quiet swamp, nothing that breathes visits me. Perhaps it's ungrateful to say that I now prefer the xeric solitude of being away from home.

When the self is uprooted from its birthplace, one is a wanderer. A seeker of connection in unfamiliar lands. A survivor who strives. An independent wayfarer who holds Love in his heart instead of his hands.

Studying overseas have instilled in me a duality in what I define as 'home'. Such a strange concept that evolved through out the 4 years I spent in Australia.

It's true. The heart longs for longing. A conundrum.

With the water

Wudu', Ablutions. The act of running water over your face, forearms, forehead and feet in the correct order and number of times. A symbolic act of purifying the self before one turns one's face towards His Mercy.

And then prayer itself. Likened in the Qur'an to the act of crossing a river. Having crossed a river 5 times in a day, will your clothes not be clean? Similarly, the heart, the Soul.

Deliberate and slow, let the water heal.

Now at 3 in the morning, I think of the two letters I've started writing and left unfinished. 

Amsterdam

Checking in. Leaving for Venice tomorrow.

I'll not speak of the sights. That belongs at a later time, when I am calm and unhurried.

Instead I'll just unburden my mind a little and say, I find it odd how people react to another hiding their grief. As if heralding one's feelings of anguish signifies the depth of caring. For me personally, the more significant the wound, the stronger the desire to hide it. 

Why should I, let the uncaring masses witness my profound loss? Such a sullying of my breavement.

This is an odd tangent isn't it. This is why: I was at the Tulip gardens and I thought of the Qur'an, how it describes Jannah as gardens with rivers flowing beneath it and hence among the bright flowers, I remembered Death.