The Dryness and the Rain

First came a strong wind,

rippin' off rooftops like bottlecaps

and bending lamp posts down in the ground.

then came a thunder shattering my windows

but you were not that strong wind or that might sound

You left the bar in shambles,

the rabbit hutch in ruins,

the split-rail fence splintered and the curtains torn.

all the cows out from the pastures trampling of the pumpkins

and the horses from their stable 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 the 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 mutually surrendered tears!

A fish swims through the sea

while the sea is in a certain sense,

contained within the fish!

Oh, 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!