first came a strong wind,
ripping off rooftops like bottlecaps
and bending lampposts down to the ground
then came a thunder shattering my windows
but you were not that strong wind or that might sound
that left the barn in shambles, the rabbit hutch in ruins
the split-rail fence splintered and the curtains torn,
all the cows out from the pastures trampling on the pumpkins
and the horses from their stables ambling in the corn
Isa ruhu-lah 'alaihis-salat was-salam
I've flown unnoticed just behind you like an insect
and I've watched you like a falcon from a distance as you passed
then swooped down to be nearer to the traces of your footsteps
to pick the fallen grain from the dirt beneath the crooked grass
and I'm gonna take that grain and I'm gonna crush it all together
into the flour of a bread as small and simple and sincere
as when the dryness and the rain finally drink from one another
the gentle cup of mutual surrender tears
A fish swims through the sea,
while the sea is in a certain sense
contained within the fish!
Ah, what am I to think
of what the writing of a thousand lifetimes
could not explain
if all the forest trees were pens
and all the oceans ink?
nastagh-firuka ya Hokan
ya Dhal-Jalah wal-Ikram
Isa ruhu-lah 'alaihis-salat was-salam
ya Halim, ya Qahhar
ya Muntaqim, ya Ghaffar!
la Ilaha ilallahu, Allahu Akbar!
