Her eyes are
knitting needles,
my heart
Her design,
Her words are golden gossamer threads,
sewn into a cloak,
as clandestine
invisible as a spider’s web,
dusted with dew
and tangled light
we slip away like moon and stars
as dawn arrives to restore our sight
And she reveals the secret,
He is in all ways everywhere,
wherever we always are.
Oh, faint fever,
feel this ever-curing bond with You…
the sinuous slips of aloeswood
the interlocking of imagined fingers…
the indentation of Your proximity upon my soul
’tis the tincture of oud.”
This love is a cross road between
long and distant highways
unseen
You are always there… I,
sometimes here, with her, yet
love is where there is
not a where…
of this, dear God,
I have become aware.
Now, I sit in shadows
and listen to lovers
speak of their encounters…
“He was touching me, ” she said.
He says, “she kissed me…
then we woke beneath sheets,
I remained the bed,
she made tea in the low angle morning light…”
all this, I saw whilst
out of sight.”
These are simple tales and plaints
But You and I Lord,
we speak poesies into the solitude,
Lovers like these say,
“I – you,
touch your – my soul,
You – I,
kiss my – your heart,
we – You,
wake in quiet moments,
Sight lingers behind my eyes
in shadows of truths
I dip this porous cup
into the ocean of my heart…
to where Your rivers flow
carrying the sweetness in the sunlight
through the valleys of the dark.
spilling love along the path.
We sip tea, now just Mustafa and me, oh Beloved…
We two speak poesies.
If there were but only one star
in an empty night,
I’d be able to imagine it
disappearing…
I’d worry – but why?
For You are every star…in this
star-filled sky
You are the arc of my eye’s leap…
from one star spire to the other.
I’ll navigate in infinite circles if I must.
But it will take a billion disappearing stars,
one after another into dust,
for You to go dark
but they are always in Your sight
wherever they are.
Send my eyes to the gallows
banish me from my city walls
Muhammad was left by flesh
and angels alike
orphaned time again and again
The silk road of love
travels away from the heart
and yet this same road
is the unpaved path going in and in
and in.
What trail can the feet follow,
when flesh is shed
when the mother and father are dead
when the uncle has left
when the tribe is cleft
when from the cave you fled
awaiting the message
to follow what the messenger said
Taken in by gypsy’s, left for alms
bodies dance with open palms
one up, one down
I, the center axis
You, where all reality collapses
into a point, a single unity
of being.
Love is the synapsis.
This heart is a star in my Beloved’s sky,
not an earthbound beacon.
The former follows Her an eternity,
the latter eventually disappears.
Love is all that’s left of me
as my body is poisoned with death
it slips away
like a shell
with every soul dislodging breath,
ever more, ever more
within the extinguished body
is the spirits secret cure.
