WAKING THE DREAM

it's like grammar school,
learning to spell
my name,
letting my tiny fingers
grip the pencil,
twisting and turning
on the page, the proud
feeling while waiting
for the gold star
and a on the report card...

only to be given a new name,
one that came when i remembered
the Oneness of Love, like a soul
tucked in to a body, waiting
for daddy's good night kiss.
listen.
though we remain His children,
lessons in life acted like paint
hiding a masterpiece beneath.
those dreams of paradise?
they aren't dreams.

TASTE OF GOD

those who have tasted God carry it;
ecstasy never leaves their voices.
we don't need a language
to understand it in,
just make a sound
and whatever comes
from your mouth
will emanate
the taste
of Love.

Hu!

You
drip
invisibly,
inaudibly
from our
lips.

LOVE?

Through this,
you lead me through
the night.
The path to peace
is lit. I yearn You,
Lord, Most Merciful,
Most Compassionate.
Am I the essence
You want me to be,
pure ingredients
creating my heart?
Am I real
in this, Lover?
Can I really be
Love?
Lover of Love,
do I Love You?
In the sound
of my heart,
Love,
is that You?

HOPE WRITTEN ON A STORMY NIGHT

Call it starlight,
this flame
that has not failed me...

call it God-Light
and sigh it
into the universe
like every star
that brightens
this night sky.

If I can't see stars,
still my heart;
We whispered
away doubt
with Mystery,
making possible
what we deny
God creates.

There are so many signs,
so many paths
to peace.

And they are not dreams.
Even in my confusion tonight,
even in the aftermath
of heartbreak,
we will trust in the Divine.
He is unbeatable; He is
every unknown Essence
scattering
seeds
of Light.

Oh, Light of Love.
You are the Teacher,
teaching us to touch
our way out of darkness.
Your hand leads ours
and faith itself will give sight
to any unseeing eye
tonight.

HOW WE SAY GOODBYE

(for Aqsa Parvez)
http://www.thestar.com/search?&q=aqsa&r=


my darling child,
rebellious
one
who sought only
what a child would,
how has it come to this?
the name of our God
is the same
yet you have died
because of Him
and i have
claimed
only
Love
in His Name.

God's own tears
can't undo
what
was
done
to
you

who is safe now
in the hands of God.
if only,
if only,
if only
one of us had known
(we did know),
had been there
to stop
him.

now
He holds you,
like a star in the sky.
you are my universe tonight.
i never cried
like this before,
never yearned to shed
my own guilt
so much
because
we waited
for it to come to this,
selfishly
failing
to protect
what you alone
could not protect.
my love will yearn forever to resuscitate
the will to fight
what you alone
could
not
fight.

i am your voice
and you,
my
darling
child,
were mine
because
i no longer
care
what
i will
sacrifice.

in death,
you
became
the child
of Love,
sweet sister,
beloved
child.

i am awake tonight
to pray
your life
will wake us all.
i am crying tonight
what tears can't heal.

in our mistakes,
humanness is forgiven,
but what happens
now.
we should have come.
we should have heard.

what there is to learn,
oppression
wears
your
face
and everywhere
we hear no answer
when we call out your name.
you
show
us
we
are
all
to
blame.

Our prayers must break our silence
like a storm cloud
until His Love reigns again.

He Is Why

He is the why

the Y of You
the I in why

the Y seed
dots the i
with why

why?
He is why

without Y
without I
without Why

the word of God
could not be
spoken

LIGHT DOES NOT SHATTER

the reason
light will not shatter
gave it so huge a symbolic duty.
watch closely because it can shine
no matter how many rays we deem divided.
scattering,
there
is
only
the
scattering,
like star dust,
still glittering,
gently,
like whispering
of angels
when a child is born.
the sun isn't made
of breakable
matter.
it's power feels more
like a note of the song
from God's Oneness
than the glass that holds
the blood of Jesus.

there is, after all,
only the symbol
of blood,
the illusion of death,
our tongues taste Truth
in the names of God,
infinite
expressions
of the One.

there is a place
in God's world
for shattering
and scattering
and shards,
but nothing is ever
enough to turn
to wound the sense
of Light in us.

those are stories,
fiction,
fantasies.

a zillion rays
make a zillion pieces
of light. after all,
God uses this to guide
the lost,
the empty,
the aching,
the shredded,
the bleeding.

we have witnessed
the ability of
a kiss of the most miniscule
trickle of light
to heal
a person for life.

LEARN TO SWIM

how do i feel
when i cannot feel
myself fleeing
into the dreams?
how would i tell
my emotions
from the God-touch,
the sacred ray
of my soul?
it's not as if
they are oceans
i can swim across
and at the same time,
it's impossible
leaving my continent
to enter Yours
when You are the only Owner
of the universe.

there it is!
the answer was a lost verse

and i felt it when i watched
myself melt into water,
no longer afraid, no
longer attached
to the need
to find land again.
my prayers are just these drops
of water that my spirit
knows by name. i would fall
like the sun on the horizon
just to lift myself up
and exhale You,
Guiding Light,
Star-kissed Night,
flame of my soul,
we feel you now.
welcome
us
home.

UNSEEN HUES

i am not.
the flame of wisdom
may only bring me
the illusion of burning.

You are.
You are not this mystery,
You are not this hiding.

i am.
quietly, i become aware of You
as if recalling a dream,
the chameleon of Truth.

You are.
You are emptiness.
You are fulfillment.

i am; we are.
the only taxi to You is Love
and no matter what the body wishes for,
You are the constant chance to Love once more.



(Note: I'm moving all the poems from Poems With Wings into this blog. I'm not going to backdate, but I will probably list the date it was published in the old blog)

RISING IN PRAYERS

the sun is rising like the fragrance
of the rose. when we wake
from our dreams, the hues
of our souls look through our eyes
and exclaim, "Allah is greater
and prayer is better than sleep!"

if it were a flame,
Love would devour us
and we would cease
to exist in the burden
we have always believed
was the real you and me.

if it were a foreign language,
it would still leave us
among the nameless,
the ones whom words cannot cage.
we know now, Love,
Your Essence is not the face
we insist to veil it with...
and it is diving into the depths
of Your Essence that teaches best
how to live in it.

LISTENING TO MOZART AND ANGELS

Love makes music;
music makes Love.
Your ears and our ears
yearn it like no other
conversation between us.
There is no better evidence
of angels than this.
The melody is how we hear
the human heart's desire
to fly, the sound of sorrow
transformed into a prayerful cry.
When we enter paradise,
the music will have so many secrets
to share, we will spend the rest
of eternity mesmerized.

PAPA KNOWS

(lots of rough drafts spilling out of me today and i want to note them in the blog because they are my questions and answers about peace all at once)

bawa, my eyes are failing.
papa, i can't see.

papa, there is a veil
of words i put over God's words
and now i am too blind to read.
bawa, if i told them this,
they would take me to doctors
because all i want to tell them
is, "i have found the way to peace
is to let it be like rain."
cleanse me of my sins. bawa, am i crazy
to think it's as simple as bleeding
peace drop by drop no matter how hard
someone else bleeds for war?
am i wrong to love God more?

isn't it just to make love?
isn't it just to refuse anger
and replace it with this sweet dream
where no one is harmed, where everyone

sees
You
are
calling
us to be
Peace,
where
we
have
no
choice
but
to
be
children
drawn
to
Love?

what is i?

i am the desire
to become this bruise,
same color as the night,
where am i?

or is the i an illusion?

the dream is not going anywhere,
the false will not commit itself to truth.
the singer can fill the song, but not become it.
yet we all find our way to this longing

to be in Love.

you and i share the wound,
we are forgetting who we are
and who we are to God.
so why, why, why are we still so scared?

we are the antibiotic, too.

feel me, this blood fills me,
this love of life blinds me,
when everything is God
why is God still so hard for us to see?

our glasses smashed in the street; now the bare feet bleed.

i will carry you, lift you, hold you,
is this God? this dance?
dance. we are dancing.
we are God's dance. dance.

dreamer, dream.
lover, love.
sister, brother,
mother father,

God. it is all God.

this religion
is like Muhammed,
Peace Be Upon Him,
who walked away from a war

to lead millions of warriors

into the heart
of a community and said,
"now the greater jihad begins."
you and i are the ones holding guns,

not God.

JUST LOVE

every time
i tell someone
about islam,
i say,
"peace."
i say,
"salaam."
this alone
speaks volumes
about my faith

that every Muslim
lives today
to teach the meaning
of greeting
the world in peace.

i think we all agree
that the wounds
are blood in the palms
of God, that Christ,
Peace Be Upon Him,
was not crucified
so that we might make war
instead of love.

and Noah wasn't given
the duty of an ark
so large it could
rescue us in pairs
just so that we could
spend these years
separating over the veil
of God we call our differences.

don't we all breathe
the same air?
don't we ultimately
share it?

the need for Mercy
is not to be gambled,
hidden until one wins
and another loses.
in those games,
we think we gather around God
but Shaytan deals the cards.

let me point at my own face,
let me make due with the fact
that all belongs to God.
i owe Him this claim
of my own pile of shame.

i can see only myself
in the mirror of God's eyes.
i must repent my own way
back into God's grace
and you repent your way
into yours. we can do it with
the rays of the peace of God
in our eyes,our hearts and legs.
our hands must hold what matters,
not cards or dice or bombs.

how can we not forgive
when every moment of our lives,
God is forgiving.
this God beyond description
shows us one thing.
pleasing God is just love
until just love
is enough for everyone.

Muhammed, Peace Be Upon Him,
waits in his heart to be touched
by the beauty as Allah
is praised with all our senses.
there is nothing more
to life than this.
the purpose of life
is to live it as His.

YA RAHMAN

let it be my truth.
the first name of my Lover
is the heart of my desire.

Ya Rahman

may i make good
with Your Goodness.
may my deeds be sweet
as the habits of birds
greeting that first light.

Ya Rahman

let me wake to my desire
to please You as i reach
into the night

Ya Rahman

i awaken again
to the knowledge.
prayer is better
than sleep.

Ya Rahman

may my prayer be
beautiful as the dawn.

Ya Rahman

may every breath
of my prayer
scatter the seeds
of Your Goodness,

Ya Rahman,

throughout the world.

Ya Rahman

may i be so full of beneficence,
my entire being shimmers
with Divine Light.

Ya Rahman

this yearning
is a candle under the stars.

Ya Rahman

i know nothing of Your Goodness
unless i seek to make it the heart
of my heart, the breath of my breath,
the voice of my voice is Yours,
O Tenderly Beneficient One.

Ya Rahman
Ya Rahman
Ya Rahman

WHAT YOU TRULY ARE NOT

Light
will not
catch
so trust
you are not caught
in the brambles,
you truly are not.
you did not stop going
toward God.
the thorns will remind you
of Him. they are just like angels.
you should thank them!
His Love is more than
any illusion.
God let you get stuck
on the lesson of the thorn.
are you praying?
are you patient?
are you sure
you want
nothing
more
than
God?

A SHAYKH IS REMEMBERED

ELEGY FOR LEX HIXON

in my heart,
you are an author
whose book
fills my mind
with pages,

questions
that we find at
every intersection,
you took the time
to answer,
Brother
on the Path of Light,
the Path of the Beloved.

do you smile at our tough shells?
do you wait to tell us the tool
is love? the hammer can't break us.
with gentle encouragement, we make friends
with the most fragile flowers in the Beloved's garden.

we all need Love to become buds
and more Love to be one with the Bloom.
one man's light stands by while we work
to reach the meat of our heart.
we drank the words
of the Quran
all night.

he showed the way
and it was just another november,
the first day, years after his ray went home,

we are here
tonight
not to fade.
for in heaven
there is no dusk
and it is always a new dawn.
the walls came down
when we learned
there was no need for them,
just the strength
of the Sufi, at home
on every holy route,
the wanderer,
the seeker,
the dreamer,
the song
you sang,
we are singing, too.

WANTING TO CHANT

(this is a very rough draft, but I wanted to post it here anyway)

tonight
at midnight
in the quiet,
i will pray
myself
into
You,

la ilaha ill allah

Heartbeat
of heartbeats.

la ilaha ill allah

there is no us,
no me, no not.
there is no you,
but You.

la ilaha ill allah

Divine Everything,
in the silence
after the midnight chime,

la ilaha ill allah

all that is here,
all that is caught up
for a while in time speaks.

la ilaha ill allah

hear all existence
in the stillness

la ilaha ill allah

worshiping
You.

la ilaha ill allah

there is no you
but You

la ilaha ill allah

IN DRAWING THE SPIRAL

Regarding my poem about The Goddess, most of us say there is no such thing as male or female in God. Yet when many people hear God or Allah, they think of "Him" in a masculine sense. I try to use a variety of names for The Nameless One in my blogs to loosen others and myself from the habit of making God into an image of a man.

IN DRAWING THE SPIRAL

the sound of The Goddess
appears. how does
the swirling of crayons
on paper become so obvious
a sign, so obvious
a melody?

when you can't hear
Her voice, take chalk
or pens or even a stick
and let Her sing you
into the sound,
pirouette
after
pirouette.

Her melodies
will peel away
our layers of doubt,
exposing the soul's gift
of harmony.
even in the silence,
She listens, tucking us
into Her Heart
where Light and Sound
and even Heaven and Earth
become at once every synonym
for Love and Peace in the realm of eternity..

(last revision: 11/9/07)

PEARLS

sorrow is not the cause of this.
my heart isn't heavy with this weight
because it is hurt. i chased
joy and now my hair is going gray
and being immersed in Your Love means more
than avoiding what i risk to yearn.
You are nodding. You give me a feather,
to put in the dream of my wings
and tell me to ache to fly
until the ache is joy and my cries
are hymns full of gratitude.
"tears," God says, "turn to pearls
when they fall for Me and Me alone."

when you're the one to smell the rose...

Salaam,

The other day I was wowed by something Lex Hixon wrote in the beginning of "The Heart of the Koran". His friend smelled roses when they made the spiritual pilgrimage to Mecca. It made me wonder what this might have to do with how often I "smell flowers that aren't there" in recent months. This morning, while listening to some great music, it happened. I smelled the rose. When stuff like that happens, I feel myself leaving this world and how hard it would be to exist in both worlds at once. God has helped me though to find a place where I can touch Love and have another drop of It spilled into my heart.

Probably not too many people expect to dance with God. We don't think God would choose us for a dance. Just like our first dances at school and our first cases of puppy love, we're wondering if we might not be special enough to be wrapped in His arms and led on the Dance floor. That's the only thing that stands between ourselves and God, thinking we're not special enough. We think God only goes to the prophets (Peace Be Upon Them) or the saints or the mystical poets like Rumi.

I don't mean the type of special that replaces humility with gluttonous pride. True Love of God fills the humble heart. The proud heart is my personal jihad. My pride, not my lack of it, causes the lack of self-confidence and self-esteem. I fight with it constantly, but there has been some tiny spark yearning to glow and grow inside my heart. This is the flame of Love that lives inside every heart. Sometimes it is buried under so much junk, it feels like it's not there.

But...God is...the most Merciful. If Allah forgives, we can forgive ourselves for the error of the junkyards in our hearts and start decluttering with a sincere desire to repent. This means to humble (not humiliate) ourselves before Allah who knows how hard we struggle. God made us; She knows what we are up against yet She also gives us the power to reject desires that lead us to sin.

Just ask; God will listen.

Know that even we , the average man and woman, can smell the rose that appears not to be there. Just one bit of advice: God knows even glimpses of pure Love could make us too drunk to walk for the rest of our lives. So God gives you and me what She gives us drop by drop until we can handle the amazing world as Muhammed (PBUH) described for God in the Beautiful Quran. Bury yourself inside the fragrance of the rose and praise God for leading you to it. You can do it. We can all do it!

Al-hamdu lillah! Praise God!

WHEN YOU'RE THE ONE WHO SMELLS THE ROSE

i don't know
what i'm saying,
but Allah does.
the mystery
of not knowing
is enough
when revelation
turns like this dance
with God on my tongue.

my BeLoved, why
does the essence
of the rose
shower me now
from the depths
of my soul
as if i dream
myself into a new
sense of being?

i could fade
into it,
couldn't i?
i am senseless,
changing with faith,
etched
on my heart,
leading me into
death of self,
the fragrance,
the dance,
the mystery
of this language
leads to death
of flesh.

i breathe the Language
to be made pure
with Your Love.
i chant Your Names
again and again
until i lose all
but my call to You within.

(last revision: 10/24/07)

*footnote: see Divine Remembrance for the experience that led to this poem

IT ISN'T EASY LOVING THE ENEMY

when the sky
acknowledges
your secrets,
the universe
pulls down
the walls,

the barriers
of the tiniest cells
open and what is within them
blossoms,

when we trust
what is most innate,
our actions embrace that.
we put fear down
like a gun
and move ourselves
into a new place,
where we understand
our enemies
and trust them enough
to fill them
like cupped hands
taking water.
love is love
after all.

we don't need walls;
we need to hold peace
like the most fragile
thing that needs to be
born from us.

(last revision: 10/22/07)

LAST NIGHT A MAN IN HARTFORD DIED

last night a man in hartford died.

the news anchor fit it in
between two sensational stories.

most of us don't know whose life

was lost or care the heart within
once belonged to a baby.

in our faraway town, there are no crimes

and hard times are less frequent
and good times an assumed thing,

we haven't time to mourn thugs' lives.

the evening news doesn't owe a man,
but we do, we the human family,

who put tears in God's eyes.

(last revised: 8/29/07)

i will stop using the backdating option and just add these poems in with a note on the revision history.

YOU ARE HUNGRY

are you hungry?

your body is a bowl
and I fill it
with ingredients
that defend
and offend
your soul,
but there are spices
to turn bitter things sweet
and other things sour.
feed your hunger,
but with my recipes.
digest but also nourish
yourself wherever
you starve
and never forcefeed,
but seek to share
each meal as proof of My Love.

(last revision: 10/19/07)

MEETING WITH GOD

(I wrote this September 22; it's sort of halfway between poem and lyrics, but it helps me feel comforted by the newly felt presence of God in my life)

He meets me here
in my one step forward,
wipes away my tears,
tells me i have found my Lord.

i fill my heart with Him,
i cry out to Allah
before the day begins
and again under the stars.

the rain is my reminder
that i must wash my sins
and all day i must yearn
to be worthy of Him.

the sky did not turn blue
without His permission.
the world does not turn
unless under his direction.

Allah, my Allah,
may i be worthy of Your Love.
My Allah, Ya Allah,
may i be granted Your Compassion.

My Allah, i have no words
for the way You fill my heart
with desire to be pure
and praise You forever.

Let Your Will be my will,
let my humility be pleasing.
as i journey valleys and hills,
may my soul never cease

reaching toward You.
let my journey be worthy
lead me to You, Ya Wadood.
Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim.

(last revised Sept. 22)

IN HER EMBRACE

i think i would feel safest
dressed in Your Embrace,
naked beneath it
and feeling my body
as a vague and distant melody;
Your lullaby and nothing else
carried me to this place
where i could give up everything
just to be wrapped like a gift
in the essence of Your Love's Embrace.

sort of a haiku...

i heard You answer
while i knelt whispering in
the ears of flowers.

(i realized today that the Divine ray comes from all of creation not just humankind. this poem honors that and is my prayer to be more loving toward earth and to take my responsibility serioiusly to revere and protect all creation).

GOD DANCED WITH ME

(praise God)

my soul is slipping
away
through a secret passageway.
i am out of the cage.
and we are going to Hu.
He is beauty;
She is Father;
He is Mother;
but
also Lover
and in All Aspects, the Ultimate Friend.
i am Loved;
i am Laughing.
I am Crying.
i have tasted Love's Sweetness,
reaching for Hu
in Hu.
She answered.

i have danced with God.
does this make sense?
no, it doesn't,
but i have danced with God
and in my falling
away from my world
Hu's Embrace took the falling away.
and i tell you
the Embrace
is a Dance
and the Dance is Love.
it is a Paradise.
yes,
i have tasted Paradise.

THE ART OF BEING

today i will learn
not to promise,
but to bless
possibility.
in all my words
i will aim
to speak
only truth
and to gain
wisdom
as i know
there are gifts
offered by silence.
in my heart
i will yearn
to dance in the rain,
to dissolve blame,
to kiss the face
of my most ugly self
until she becomes
someone i can love.

(last revised 3/15/07)