The Prophet Muhammad Arose One Morning

(sallahu alayhi wa salaam)

The Prophet Muhammad arose one morning
and by evening it was obvious he was no
ordinary mortal

He was a heart that spoke to a mouth that
spoke to the ears of multitudes

And it was our hearts that heard him
through the dust and blood of time and its
wrenchings its smooth valleys and its

sudden explosions its

disappearance and its appearance again as
faces at a window asking to be let in

to Allah’s portico facing the radiant light of the
central breath

I’m aloft in the air with these thoughts
in the thrill of a fuselage heading east

confounded by the possibility of it as we
float forward without entirely

evaporating in space as buoyant as a bubble
propelled by a superior force

He came down from the cave changed utterly
all the years of the world suddenly folded into him
literally speaking of those to come through
those who’d gone before from first to last in the
perfect order of grammatical tones and
spectacular intonations

The light of his face goes before this
airplane in the dark

The light of his star goes before this
planet as its anchoring beam

The light of his heart in our hearts is what
makes us sane

---

4/29/2005 (en route to the Grand Mawlid at Wembley, London)
(from The Coattails of the Saint)

Categories: Poems, The Prophet Muhammad (salallahu alayhi wa sallam), Love