When I Pray
When I pray the whole world becomes a pair of huge insect wings behind me, and I am a standing green insect with metallic…
لاَّ تُدْرِكُهُ الأَبْصَارُ وَهُوَ يُدْرِكُ الأَبْصَارَ وَهُوَ اللَّطِيفُ الْخَبِيرُ
Vision perceives Him not, but He perceives [all] vision; and He is the Subtle, the Acquainted.
(Surah al-An’aam: 103)
At some point you
have to decide just
how much you want an
entirely new perception of things
as they are
We’re not going to find God
in a threadbare overcoat
in a dank laboratory
down a zigzag street on a
moonlit night in
Vienna
Who turns to us nevertheless
with a most radiant smile —
but in everything and nothing
there and there and there
The songbird never alights too
long on any branch
until it plans to sleep
there
It’s all to do with
radical simultaneity
or as the Buddhists say:
“Interdependent Arising”
of neon green farmland going on
for miles
fringed with willow copses
under bright blue sky
firefly on the carpet
blinks its thanks when
returned back outside
Nothing reveals Him more
than His invisibility
though “The Invisible One” is not
one of the Ninety-Nine Names of God
nor is “The Visible One”
but only
“He Who Sees”
8/15/15 (from White Noise in This World Silver in the Next)
Categories: Poems