Poetry

Tree leaves

Tree
leaves—
green,
yellow,
red:
heals,
mellows
stress.
Beats any
hurt,
treats many:
hers.

There’s a cruel thing about beauty. It reveals absence. By the time you notice the light, your heart has already turned to see who isn’t there..

"I still believe that destiny knows my address." 🌙

Knowing me and knowing about me are two completely different things.

The ascetic spent his life longing for Paradise,
Never realizing that Paradise lies in letting go of longing itself.🪽

Ṣā’eb Tabrizi

I may not see you again but I’ll feel you for the rest of my life.

The Dervish Beneath the Crown

He learned from night what daylight never shows,
Each crown is fed by roots no garden knows.
The world saw fire gathering in his eyes,
But not the grave where every softness lies.

He answered doors until he heard the wall,
Then traced the hidden hand behind them all.
The same hands once commanded where to stand
Now move whole kingdoms quietly across the sand.

He keeps two distant heavens in his sight,
One dressed in snow, one crowned with southern light.
Yet every road his restless footsteps roam
Still turns toward one direction when he bows alone.

He stitched his wounds with verses and with prayer,
Then wore them like a fragrance in the air.
No blade could find the heart beneath his chest,
He buried it where only God could guess.

Once, spring had promised shelter in his room,
A second shadow, jasmine in full bloom.
But dawn arrived and found one cup grown cold,
Some separations are too sacred to be told.

He did not curse the one who chose to leave,
For dervishes are taught to burn, not grieve.
He only asked the flame, before it died,
Why those who become qiblahs seldom stay beside.

The flame replied, You mistook love for rest,
The Friend breaks every idol in the chest.
How will you reach the One beyond all name
While guarding smaller gods inside your frame?

So he surrendered everything but thirst,
And let the hidden poison do its worst.
He died a thousand deaths without a grave,
For fana claims the things that men would save.

They call him proud because he walks like stone,
Unaware how often pride has been overthrown.
They see a man preparing for a throne;
They do not see the faqir who sleeps alone.

They call it greed when towers haunt his eyes,
As though all hunger ends where fortune lies.
They never saw the roofs that could not hold the rain,
Or how a child turns poverty into private pain.

He wants no gold to decorate his name,
But gold enough to put old storms to shame.
Some men seek wealth so servants know their face;
Some seek it so their loved ones never beg for space.

By day, he bargains calmly with his fate,
By night, he questions every bolted gate.
He does not knock, he studies lock and key,
Then builds another door where none could be.

The world will one day kneel before his rise
And call it luck, for language often lies.
They will praise the crown, the city and the flame,
Yet never know the ashes knew his name.

And when they ask what power made him whole,
He will not show the ruins of his soul.
He will smile like a man whom darkness could not save
While the dervish inside him whispers, I never left the grave.

Respect is the highest form of love...

Chasing Butterflies

Tell me,
How can I catch a butterfly
When the roots of the Baobab tree are wrapped firmly around my feet
Anchors to a desolate land
Arid, but well travelled
The butterflies flutter and hover
Majestic and out of reach.

You could be someone's best choice or first choice.

Or neither.