What deeds gave you a jeweled palace secured
In heaven by the lips of the Messenger?
You have a spacious grave attended by the kindest angels.
O Lady Khadijah, beloved of our Lord Mohammad, forever,
I pray my heart proves to be pure like yours.
Dearest Allah, Your love shines in my life forever,
But I struggle to be faithful. My sins obscure
My faith and my piety. My financial dealings have been
Fraught with temptation and sin. Our Lady Khadijah in her dealings remained so pure
Of usury and corruption. Please make me like her.
She fed the poor and hungry. She gave the ability to marry
To those who could not afford it. She deserved
The titles, Ameerat-Quraish, Princess of the Quaraish
Khadija Al-Kubra, Khadijah the Great, Al Tahir,
The Pure. Merciful Allah, conform me to her image.
When the Messenger would retreat to Mount Hira
To fast and pray she would feed him. Her wealth assured
The Messenger had time to cultivate his spirit. The birth of Islam relied
On her support. When the Prophet descended and shivered
She was the one to put a blanket around him and to comfort him.
She was the first Muslim. Without her the Prophet would have had no supporter,
And no way to establish our faith. Her riches succoured
The converts. Her faithfulness to the Blessed Message
Sanctified her for all time. What love and piety! I wonder
About how I could follow her example more.
What made her marriage to the Messenger’s so strong and sure?
Lady Aisha asked what made her worthy of his love like no other.
He replied: “She accepted me when people rejected me, she believed in me
When people doubted me, she shared her wealth with me when people deprived me,
And Allah granted me children only through her.” Beloved Allah, cast me in her mold!
O Lady Khadijah we know there are four women above all others
Khadijah bint Khuwaylid, Fatimah bint Muhammad, Mary bint Emran
and Asiya bint Muzahim, the wife of Pharaoh.
You were the perfect wife for the Seal of the Prophets and the most perfect mother.
O Allah, encourage me to strive harder! O Allah, help me be pure! O Allah, make me like her!
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Saturday, October 23, 2010
the victim pleading innocence
Why does the conscience scream at the sight of natural disaster,
at the Big Problems that we all grieve.
Not everyone has this arrogance but I am certain
it lives like a sewer in a city, everywhere running
implied by the facts we know of our day to day lives.
Look at Hurricane Katrina. What
negligence of the Bush Presidency to send off
the Guard from the levies,
baring New Orleans to the Gulf-
Or the typhoon that swept across Asia, 2004:
orphans and widows left behind as people
washed out to sea, the dead victims of a
sudden pestilential rain. the sea gulls
were flying axial changes in Australia.
The Gulf Oil spill, the thick red drops
of oil and chemicals in the water
Barack Obama approved increased off shore drilling
just last year.
Seen in day light these must be the acts of God
at the most incomprehensible. Our ability to choose destruction
no cure for the tendency to be victims of God's will.
But how many people, like me, unwillingly opt
to cull from these evil moments- guilt,
that we pulled the trigger, in some way that we are connected
and culpable.
The attacks against us increase, we grovel and fend off
guilt and self-hate. Our thoughts within the confines of our hearts
connect us to the problems of the world.
A psychosis of responsibility or of power
created by lack of position or influence
and the tragedy of others becomes diminished to
our small mistakes we misconstrue as causes
and this travesty continues without ceasing
in the paranoid heat of our minds.
In response:
God cannot be that arbitrary.
The Creator and Sustainer of the Universe
is no unsteady adolescent.
The secret solution:
To cultivate the joyful moments
as a buffer from despair,
and the grandiose presumptions that
our death, or even human hate prompts.
Our true responsibility:
To bathe carefully, and notice the smell of azaleas after rain falls.
To chew our rice. To speak more softly than those who speak to us.
at the Big Problems that we all grieve.
Not everyone has this arrogance but I am certain
it lives like a sewer in a city, everywhere running
implied by the facts we know of our day to day lives.
Look at Hurricane Katrina. What
negligence of the Bush Presidency to send off
the Guard from the levies,
baring New Orleans to the Gulf-
Or the typhoon that swept across Asia, 2004:
orphans and widows left behind as people
washed out to sea, the dead victims of a
sudden pestilential rain. the sea gulls
were flying axial changes in Australia.
The Gulf Oil spill, the thick red drops
of oil and chemicals in the water
Barack Obama approved increased off shore drilling
just last year.
Seen in day light these must be the acts of God
at the most incomprehensible. Our ability to choose destruction
no cure for the tendency to be victims of God's will.
But how many people, like me, unwillingly opt
to cull from these evil moments- guilt,
that we pulled the trigger, in some way that we are connected
and culpable.
The attacks against us increase, we grovel and fend off
guilt and self-hate. Our thoughts within the confines of our hearts
connect us to the problems of the world.
A psychosis of responsibility or of power
created by lack of position or influence
and the tragedy of others becomes diminished to
our small mistakes we misconstrue as causes
and this travesty continues without ceasing
in the paranoid heat of our minds.
In response:
God cannot be that arbitrary.
The Creator and Sustainer of the Universe
is no unsteady adolescent.
The secret solution:
To cultivate the joyful moments
as a buffer from despair,
and the grandiose presumptions that
our death, or even human hate prompts.
Our true responsibility:
To bathe carefully, and notice the smell of azaleas after rain falls.
To chew our rice. To speak more softly than those who speak to us.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
2 short poems
The possibility of joy
On the Day of Judgement YOU! [weeping- will simultaneously be sending white horses to the forgiving,
Ushering each into their own gate, carefully shading those who love each other for your sake
From the fire.
Vast beyond my small dreamings, blessing me with each moment
Where I forgive, and repent.
Response to Denise Levertov
To write out what is spectacular and human and true
To be the voice of the vision of the revolution
Words lie like fossils in my mind
dead under amber dirt
A long dead treasure of stories and myths
WHERE to find SOUNDS that SING
to everything peaceful and conscious
On the Day of Judgement YOU! [weeping- will simultaneously be sending white horses to the forgiving,
Ushering each into their own gate, carefully shading those who love each other for your sake
From the fire.
Vast beyond my small dreamings, blessing me with each moment
Where I forgive, and repent.
Response to Denise Levertov
To write out what is spectacular and human and true
To be the voice of the vision of the revolution
Words lie like fossils in my mind
dead under amber dirt
A long dead treasure of stories and myths
WHERE to find SOUNDS that SING
to everything peaceful and conscious
Sunday, September 19, 2010
A sick heart
Send down a rain of Mercy
On my sick heart and wash it clean
Like a wash of foam in a once clear stream.
My world will be renewed and shine like the first day.
On my sick heart and wash it clean
Like a wash of foam in a once clear stream.
My world will be renewed and shine like the first day.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Ramadan 29, 1431
1.
My body is foam.
Underneath the marrow of my bones
You still call for me
2.
Hypocrisy fights sincerity
Competition for goodness wrapped in hatred
Success oiled with the many striving
People holding me down with their knees
As they press toward God they press my face into the ground
My mind and body are housebound
Wrapped in listless acceptance
Four weeks of happiness slipped a sedative
Four weeks of joy lacerated with a hammer
These women are trying to make jewelry out of my body,
They cut off pieces of my heart for coasters
They have vats of their food resting on my lungs
Eviscerated and silent, like a deerskin propped up on a frame
God exalted over the universe Divine Vision
Divine hearing could record the echo of a wave in the heart of a sleeping vagrant
No anguish this noisy and burning this silently enormous would remain unseen, inaudible
Without a notice. God sent angels to struggle with these curses
And beat them back for my sake, for the sake of my parents, for the sake of my son.
In the year ahead: mark my weeks with remembrance of a blessed month.
Each day I held myself like a kite in my hand, not working just resting on the air.
My body is foam.
Underneath the marrow of my bones
You still call for me
2.
Hypocrisy fights sincerity
Competition for goodness wrapped in hatred
Success oiled with the many striving
People holding me down with their knees
As they press toward God they press my face into the ground
My mind and body are housebound
Wrapped in listless acceptance
Four weeks of happiness slipped a sedative
Four weeks of joy lacerated with a hammer
These women are trying to make jewelry out of my body,
They cut off pieces of my heart for coasters
They have vats of their food resting on my lungs
Eviscerated and silent, like a deerskin propped up on a frame
God exalted over the universe Divine Vision
Divine hearing could record the echo of a wave in the heart of a sleeping vagrant
No anguish this noisy and burning this silently enormous would remain unseen, inaudible
Without a notice. God sent angels to struggle with these curses
And beat them back for my sake, for the sake of my parents, for the sake of my son.
In the year ahead: mark my weeks with remembrance of a blessed month.
Each day I held myself like a kite in my hand, not working just resting on the air.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
When I have just arisen
This body pulls me into sleep, like a slow drying beach, the boundary
where the water has been pulls at the tide.
I hover there on the overnight shift,
somewhat conscious somewhat evading life
In this between time between prayers
I hoist my heart with its poisons and jewelry
constructing gratitude: gigantic temporary shallow
My life has been slivered down just strung on a string
to amuse, broken no more garbage than it was before.
Above everything I turn my ego back on itself
confronting my own obsession my fond thoughts
the familiarity with You a deception
of ignorance: I can't know Your Vast Expanse.
I wrap my hands around prayer like a blanket
every time I sleep with You I become more attached
The time I spend talking myself into quiet
Suspended and useless: someone listens unmoved from another room.
Work, from midnight to day
quick effort thrown at poverty and isolation
marks my life with a structure like a cell
block upon block marking space
In these spaces I throw my gratitude at the sky
and to the East, and to my heart
Waiting for a new breath
a meditation for a peaceful life.
I can let go of all the pettiness
I can release all the hate
Let silence and joy fill me
As the wonder of night and quiet eases along.
My family sleeps, the quiet parks wait for daylight
The buildings rock their shadows
You give me a few words to tell myself
About all the blessings I possess.
where the water has been pulls at the tide.
I hover there on the overnight shift,
somewhat conscious somewhat evading life
In this between time between prayers
I hoist my heart with its poisons and jewelry
constructing gratitude: gigantic temporary shallow
My life has been slivered down just strung on a string
to amuse, broken no more garbage than it was before.
Above everything I turn my ego back on itself
confronting my own obsession my fond thoughts
the familiarity with You a deception
of ignorance: I can't know Your Vast Expanse.
I wrap my hands around prayer like a blanket
every time I sleep with You I become more attached
The time I spend talking myself into quiet
Suspended and useless: someone listens unmoved from another room.
Work, from midnight to day
quick effort thrown at poverty and isolation
marks my life with a structure like a cell
block upon block marking space
In these spaces I throw my gratitude at the sky
and to the East, and to my heart
Waiting for a new breath
a meditation for a peaceful life.
I can let go of all the pettiness
I can release all the hate
Let silence and joy fill me
As the wonder of night and quiet eases along.
My family sleeps, the quiet parks wait for daylight
The buildings rock their shadows
You give me a few words to tell myself
About all the blessings I possess.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Concord, California May 2010
As we pass near the playground:
Red roses, and glittering grass
Geraniums wet with light rain.
My son cries not be let down.
Red roses, and glittering grass
Geraniums wet with light rain.
My son cries not be let down.
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