Adam stood in the world
as tall as the trees

the sun bathing his body
birds wreathing his outline with

birdsong
waters everywhere splashing

growls and grandeur of new animals
ache of new growths everywhere

sounding

Alone he stood with a
hunger in his heart reaching out to

touch the edible nothingness
around him

His own essence before his
birth in Allah’s domain

nourished on Light and the Names he’ll
name creation with

to keep each radiant thing linked to
Allah’s single simultaneous

action in the unseen

each kind of leaf made consciousness
each cloud in passing also conscious

each Adam-named element
dimensionalizing the world

and the angels

all on prophet Adam’s
fasting tongue

articulating even
now if we bend in

close to our hearts to hear
that original

soft sound
_______________
8/3/2011
3 Ramadan

Noah Leon Sanders, who was selected in a magazine contest as one of fifteen official “cutest babies in Switzerland,” the bio-grandson of Peter Sanders, photographer, and step-grandson of Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore — God bless ‘im, came in third after the two weeks of voting closed. And he didn’t do nothin’ except be. But hey, really, they all won first place. As all babies in the world do… God’s mercy in making them just gorgeously “be,” submissive to love in every case. Here’s the link:
http://www.schweizer-illustrierte.ch/zeitschrift/waehlen-sie-das-suesseste-baby-des-jahres-2010

RAMADAN MUBARAK!
__________________________

AUDIO READING:GOD’S HUM

That’s God’s hum you hear
when everything is silent

When you snap the light out and
lie down in the dark

God’s hum from far away and
closely near

Along rose arbors and starlight
in endless sentences of pure sound

in total silence

It moved Noah beyond the barren plain
to see a ship in the mountainside and

build it in the air

It opened canyons to those 1800’s
landscape painters to see

golden waterfalls in blue cliffs falling into
green valleys charged with light

The hum that’s moved us all beyond our
first crawl to our final steps

as we disappear in the side of an eggshell
hill to the crystal clarity of trumpets and then

to a silence where only God’s hum is
heard and it is all form and all

formlessness and radiance on water
and rippling waves of air

more audible than sound itself
love whispering in our ear
______________
(From Invention of the Wheel, The Ecstatic Exchange, 2010

Oh Lord, the orange cat lying asleep on the
shoe rack outside the Ka’ba
looked tranquil, lean from
living wild in Mecca, but still
cat-like and sweet-faced –
surely some of this peacefulness
could come to me?

Oh Lord, You raise up giant roof-beams in the
world and
hurl great foundations
as deep as the seas –
I am only your creation of
flesh and bone,
but surely some of those
depths and heights
could be mine?

Oh Allah, I sit here facing Your House on
earth, beseeching Your Grace,
seeking Your Face,
my own not good enough in
this life,
my own face a combination of
lusty panther and
awkward ostrich
in this life,
yet I’m grateful for its
miraculous properties in
facing the world,

especially the eyes – close them
and light spreads,
open them and
miracles appear –
especially Your stark square of black cloth rising
endlessly up into the night in front of me now
but Your Face, Lord,
could I catch a
glimpse of it at least?

A white owl flies in the night somewhere,
its impassive face and saucer eyes
fleeing through the air.

Is this my face, Lord,

searching everywhere?
_______________________________
12/20/95 (from Sparrow on the Prophet’s Tomb)

A BREATH OF FRESH AIR

A breath of fresh air
sailed over the highest mountain peak and
down into the valley enjoying its
nonchalant pace over grassy plains as
green as unripe apples and the

breath of fresh air turned with the prevailing
current through a massive gorge and
just above a river where tumultuous waters as they
hurled over rocks resembled storm clouds though no
storm was brewing and the

breath of fresh air saw a city ahead and
pulled itself tighter though no less fresh
as it looped in a little air-pocket for a
short while which slowed its pace and
gave it some rest so that when it

began again toward the city it was going at a
much more leisurely rate and could really
take its time over outlying fields and across
meandering herds of sheep and goats that never even
looked up to see the fresh breath of air pass overhead

and the breath of fresh air descended slowly as it
passed the first thatched cottages dotted almost
haphazardly along the hills and it
skimmed along their brown roofs and lifted a
little as it headed toward a more concentrated
cluster of buildings and streets and now some
converging streets down below and traffic and even
noise like its memory of ocean surf

and the breath of fresh air pulled itself more
tightly together over children’s playgrounds and
a group of people sitting and eating under a
tree which the breath of fresh air slowly
circulated around admiring the massive
trunk filtering past each shapely leaf

and the breath of fresh air from the icy peak in the
far distance over the horizon finally sailed through an
open window in a tallish building with
green shutters where a sweet maiden was
sitting at a computer growing drowsy after a
long morning typing statistics

and as she turned her head and yawned
the breath of fresh air sailed happily into her
mouth and down her throat into her
filigreed lungs and she didn’t know why exactly
maybe it was the mystery of yawning
but she suddenly felt
uncannily refreshed

and her topaz colored eyes glittered for a
moment almost seeing the last few
rivering miles of movement the

breath of fresh air had taken to its
momentary dark destination in her blood
_______________________________
4/8/2002 (from Where Death Goes)

EMBEDDED IN THE VELVET IS THE THORN

Embedded in the velvet is the thorn
and at the tip of the thorn choirs

When you take off your face and sit down
something happens to sunlight bright silver envies

I have never been here before though the doors on the
corridor are locked I can
see right through them to the
multi-colored horses standing behind each one

Here’s where the harmonicas go
no identifiable tune only the reedy texture of their sound

God left the way to Him open to even the
faint of heart
a shepherd lost in the fog with his twenty goats walking in
circles or the elevator operator in gray jacket and hat
in the same building for twenty years
up and down

I’d count the number of streaks tears make down cheeks
from eyes brimming over at almost nothing at all
a memory suddenly spotlit among the tightly-squeezed
coats and trousers of an incident thought lost forever
among the shapeless sand dunes of time oh ho!

Look at where the city casts a shadow on the sky
from all the lights day and night
each comment across a table capable of illumination or not
and if not nothing’s changed
and if so some of those horses behind those
locked doors whinny and paw the ground

There’s a lion in the deep jungle who wears a
papier mâché mask of a really ferocious beast
but who only wants to be loved
belied of course by the length of his claws and the
sharpness of his teeth
and the burp after supper that sounds like “goat”

Samson didn’t test the pillars first he just
went ahead and pushed
and the entire temple celebrated critical mass

I’ve never been here before but I’m going to be
sorry to leave if
leave I must

Those zebras and those black and white stripes over there
which came first the event or the
explanation?

Nothing’s happening here that a good merry-go-round at
triple speed couldn’t fix

Nothing gets in the way but the things we’ve set up ourselves
brightly colored cutouts carefully nailed to the floor with the
photographs of friends and relatives friends and foes for
faces

their real heads just bobbing above the horizon but never quite
peering over

Nothing quite feels right just before the end of the world
and then the lights go on and the place fills up again
with the sweet murmur of excited souls

If you think getting born is bad try dying!

Afraid of Dying sat down with No Fear and tried having a
conversation but ended up sharing a
neon sandwich

I think the time has come to say goodbye to these
popped-up sentences
it’s past their bed time

And I have nowhere to go I must go to

With a song in my heart and a
shine on my shoes
and a fresh handkerchief jammed in my
breast pocket

Let go of the rope and you never know what’ll happen
but give it a tug and a campanile bell might ring
or a mountain climber hoist you up to
new heights

I wonder if it’s later in Timbouctou or if the
sun is shining and
what’s happening to the worm-eaten manuscripts in all those
dust-laden libraries no one’s read for a
hundred years or more

Ink be my mariner tonight across the open sea
the sound of pen scratching on paper a faint heartbeat on the
Way to God

and God said it’s worth far more than the
sword
and twice as sharp

See how these worlds are revealed as it
passes on leaving its
reality trails behind these
tumbling sentences like acrobats in His
happy circus?

I want a rose right now to disappear into
forever

Shout to me from your distance

Whisper from your nearness

Listen with your eyes coming to flower

Nowhere’s coming this way
and no one’s there

5/2/2003 (from Psalms for the Brokenhearted)

(Note: I may have posted this poem somewhere some time ago, but I am posting it now with a lifelong lament at the violence of our human history, with its resorting to armies so callously and often irrationally when it is a matter of individual human bodies and individual souls, and the destruction of life. True, you can sometimes never get someone to say “yes,” but it seems again and again that spilt blood is the signature we require for appeasement or coexistence.  Have you seen the bumper sticker with the word COEXIST spelled with a crescent and star for the initial C, a peace symbol for the O, the Star of David for the X, and the cross for the final T?)

A THOUSAND ARMIES

And the hapless Soldier’s sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls
— William Blake

A thousand armies sat on a wall and
everyone of them was dead

eating sandwiches out of little tin boxes
yellow broken teeth and considerable chewing

But their eyes were not that interested in seeing
their eyes didn’t follow anything moving in front of them
or look as they pulled the waxed paper away from their bread
or broke open their bottles of water or sat with their friends

There was a constant murmuring like a stomach churning its juices
a constant scratching like animals caught between walls

They sat on a wall overlooking an orchard and
each one of them was dead

But they watched the seasons come to life on the
vine in the vineyards and down the long
crop rows though their eyes barely took it in
and when the crops were harvested and the
snows came they barely blinked they barely noticed

Thousands of armies dangling their legs bootless in heaven
eating sandwiches out of little silver boxes
their eyes transformed from burning buildings and people
running into the streets to
green fields full of lions and lambs and other wingéd animals
lying together

though their eyes were always elsewhere

and their hearts were as round as the world

3/23/2003 (From Pslams for the Brokenhearted)

A little door at the bottom of it all
opens up and when you

crouch down to get in
it’s as vast as the sky itself

You can pick out the stars by night
and the planets by day

Get up from your crouch and
extend throughout all its heavenly spheres

where nothing is really holding us back
except ourselves and a few tall

mountains of bone and lead and
mournful voices

OK they don’t exist either

_________________

3/18/2008 (from The Fire Eater’s Lunchbreak, in preparation)

if-all-the-wood   (audio)

If all the wood in the world were to sing

and every rose gave a political speech

and every cloud took pity on its neighbor

and every stone composed an epic poem about
being a stone

and every dust mote were aware of its
mortality as it lay or drifted onto the
curved or flat surfaces of things

and the blind archer let go of his bowstring
and his arrow sang out its target as it
flew through to its intended goal

and the air itself through which it flew
hummed in anticipatory monotones

and water blew wet kisses to the sky

and every flame danced Flamenco
stamping itself out with its own heels until quenched

and each of us saw God direct with our
own eyes in naked vision
as clearly as we see ourselves stooping to
drink from a lake

cupping the water with our hands and
catching our eyes looking back at us
as snowy mountains go up around us to the
peak of the sky

And each of us knows we see this and
acts upon it

and phones ring with the news

But there is no news

It’s as old as God
though there be no time with God

and everything is therefore inside-out to
what it seems

and that raw inner surface is
where our existence lies

singing to the clouds and roses
and the blur of things as well as their clarity

and everything stops though it
never stops but only

flows or floats or seems to stop and start so
fast it’s like movement but is immobile

as only God moves

though He be motionless

_________________
11/5/2006 (from In the Realm of Neither, in preparation)

]

AUDIO POEM: The Only Real Life

The war’s fourth birthday…
Congratulations? ka-boom!
(all predicitions true)…

While some celebrate, others mourn, and others die – many, many others. My incomprehension soars that anyone could continue to support this war except for covert reasons that never seem to get articulated. Iraqi and American lives have been massively and tragically disrupted, the middle-class intelligentsia of Baghdad have fled and are trying to flee to neighboring countries, never mind the country that invaded them and created the chaos in the first place (only 400 plus immigrations allowed into the United States in four years. That’s 100 per year!… has America lost its conscience completely?).

So what is this war we are trying to win, and what constitutes the much vaunted victory? I see, from my naïve perspective, three goals: Oil control, Israel protection, Permanent bases. Securing the first two should be obvious, though I think that ironically our involvement may actually jeopardize Israel more than help it in the long run… But as we speak, and as villages and large parts of Iraq are struggling just to eat, get hospital care, leave the house and return in one piece, out in acres of Iraqi land America has built huge cities behind great barricades (we never see the photos) with movie theaters, bars selling alcohol (in a Muslim country!), prostitution, and electricity, water and perfect efficiency, all the things to keep soldiers well-fed and happy, since tomorrow they may die… And we talk about keeping these mini-metropolises permanently! Is this why Bush is holding on like Odysseus lashed to the mast of his boat, until the last concrete barrier is in place and we can say, definitively, that we’re here to stay and we’re never going to leave… and to hell with everyone else! “The New Middle East?”

It’s too easy to say this is a Crusade, though the religious component in Bush’s mind cannot be dismissed completely. But he’s a crude Christian to wreak such havoc on others with so little real concern (by his actions in spite of his occasional furrowed brow). It’s a total embarrassment all around… and it seems only tepid resistance by any in positions of influence. And the weasel that rolls around in the water breaking shells on its stomach is that all of this was predicted by veterans of the 60s and modern experts in think tanks and in the field, that a precipitous and unprepared invasion would bring about exactly the results we see today. Not abstractly, but exactly!

My wife and I, in our mid-60s, reminiscent of the mid-60s in America, marched with the global millions against this war at the beginning of it, to which Bush later responded saying that he doesn’t listen to “focus groups.” Now we see that he doesn’t listen to the American public, the Congress or the Constitution of the United States either, and that he “doesn’t care,” he is above such concerns. He has said that he listens to a “higher power,” but I think we should check more carefully where this voice he listens to is coming from… like, say, from under the floorboards, with the lick of flames and the smell of sulfur seeping through…

In all of this we must remember that only Allah has power…hard as it may sometimes be to see. Even Iblis is on His leash. I actually find it hard to bring myself to say this, given the horrors abounding. To try to see a positive outcome of such overwhelming tragedy and extensive Diaspora stops me, though time will certainly tell. But this is always the case, and those in the actual midst of it know it far more acutely than I. May they be comforted by His Mercy and the radiant Light of His Face.