Harud

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I was supposed to be coerced into liking Autumn before Winter, followed by Spring and then, ugh - Summer - neither of us liked the latter. You disappeared before sharing Autumn with me. Now every picture of Autumn everywhere I will see, will burn me like your Chinar trees in Harud.

Fighting the hole

As I spread my hands before me, with Your many names upon my lips fervently hung over Your attributes of Forgiveness, Giving, Listening, Answering, Knowing, Seeing, Hearing, All Ableness, and so much more... I fixate on the spot that looks like a hole. I see around that hole blessings abound; so many that I cannot count them one by one in thanks... but, I thank You for each and every one of them as only You would Know Best and hopefully Accept. But, the eyes... these woefully-possessed-as-if-uncontrollable-eyes keep getting drawn back to that one speck, which is not a mole, and keep looking at it as a black hole. It seems to have a fluctuating depth of hollow never-endingness or perhaps just a slight bend on the road of many gifts, depends on which state of peace the heart is in. As the soul fervently focuses on thanks and gratitude and humility, the eyes are perturbed by whispers of the devil... the nafs... the humanness? Which, I'll never know. But as the focus comes upon it, in all it's ebbs and flows, all it keeps looking at is that one blessing I could not get to hold on to. It came into my life plenty of times, but only to tempt me, make me weak, ungrateful, and so frustrated... because I could not hold on to it. It keeps piercing into the abyss trying to pull itself out of it, and in the struggle of the jump and the pull, it tires itself of the screams that are it's own recriminations. It slumps into the wet mess of it's own tears and continues thanking The All Knowing Able One Who has Made me who I am, to live the tests that have been written down for me, and hope not to fail, and hope to keep surfacing back up with thanks... For if the gratitude were to be lost, so would all hope of sanity and a blessed Eternity. Ya Ar Rahman Ar Raheem, Ya Ghafoor Ar Kareem - please Hold me as I feel like I am drowning... If You Save me not, I will drown myself in my tears. Please Hush my hankerings and Take me away from my human needs and wants that will suffocate me without Your Intervention. My salvation lies only in Your Holding me and Sufficing me. I plead You to Hold me and Suffice me. Ameen, Ya Dhall Jalaali Wal Ikram.




*Written to Sange Saboor playing out in the background. My Lord being my only Pillar of Patience whereupon I stop to cry.

Follow the One

Have you struggled like so? When enough was too much and too much not enough? When this said don't and that said go for it? The places you reached were not there yet and the places you still had to reach had long been gone. You put it in your mouth but there was nothing to chew on, and you kept chewing and chewing and chewing but there was nothing but bile in your throat and polluted air seeping silently into your lungs. Have you ever felt like running with the wind in your hair, everything passing you by, but when you look down at your feet your knees refuse to budge and your back is paralysed. When your arms were picking up the weight of the world but when you looked down at your hands they were blue and white, empty and cold. Do your veins play hide and seek with the eyes or does the needle easily pass through? Does the air feel too thin to breathe or is it too heavy that you feel suffocated? The hair on your head stands sometimes while you wish it stroked your back like silk, and hers lay in a tangled silky knotted mess when she tried to curl it up into curls that you thought were a mess. Was that the sound of someone casually walking into your heart or was that the door you had banged shut, being rattled and torn by all those you refused to let in; why do they cause you such stress, what is it that puts you under such inexplicable duress? The eyes keep looking at beauty while beauty its own tale keeps spinning on. It pays a visit to their doorstep, goes into all houses and surrenders itself to the horizons and valley of the world, but every time it hears you seek it in yourself it leaves the mirror blank and the heart distressed. Do you like the colour of all things around you? Do they tell you of wonders galore? Your ears listen to everyone speak but no one can hear the thud of voices that tingle and tangle within your minds silent screams. The mouth refuses to move and the tongue remains chained. The mouth begins to speak but the voice cannot exclaim. So follow the words of The One. Leave behind all else, and everyone. Many moons have risen and fallen all at the command of The One. Your sun and shade too will one day at His direction come; insha'Allah - Ameen.




* Inspired by Follow the Sun, by Caroline Pennel, from the movie To the Bone

The Interim Betwixt; Real or a Lie?

Were you a capricious whim, a fallacy?
Were you an embodiment of my wants and your wants?
Of your comings and goings should I not question your verity?
The chasms of my experience with such emotional feed
is a gaping proof of error of judgements borne of deprived needs.
Time is proof, Time is a salve, Time is testing,
Every second, every minute, every hour.
May the constant questioning of my own sanity
versus a beautiful patience and a belief in all things good,
Yet again, come and sing it's soothing rhyme
allowing the chants and motions to do a slow dance,
and let the heart beat in peace,
always at the behest of it's Maker Infinite.