Some $20

Sufi poems from the love-ocean, washing at the shores of this world and the next, with God willing a depth charge or two to find new love grottos, new heights in underwater drownings, new depths in aerial flights. Contradictions? As Walt Whitman said, “Do I contradict myself? Yes, I contradict myself! I contain multitudes.” And if we rub the self to its tissue-thin reality, God’s Light shines more thoroughly through.

Poem Selection from Some

Some Leaves Fall

for Mohja Kahf

Some leaves fall spiraling down.
Some leaves fall lopsidedly zigzagedly down.
Some seem to fall like plummets straight down.
Some twist and spin as they fall down.
Some seem to take their sweet time sailing down.
Detach themselves, fall through the air, land at our
feet, from their treetop heights,
bronze and dry, down, down,

falling through the morning air, crisp clear
October air, crisp golden petal-like leaves
showering individually down,
some at a rakish slant,
some tumbling acrobatically down,
little leaves Galileoly racing big ones down,
all adding mulch to the glittery forest floor,
however they came down,

awed me, catching my breath as I see ones as if
for me especially
falling right in front of my eyes, however
mathematically calculable their
fall, making a
spectacularly humble finale

down.

10/26/98 (from Some)

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