Pumawakachi

Wound me with worse than makes the puma cry
If that is what you want than say good-bye
And make a show of it, letting me know
That you really will be gone when you go
But if you will be gentle then be quiet,
Go melt into the night and when you’re set
I will waken to your absence without a why,
Then having understood, move on or die.

Either way will hurt me no more or less
Seizing me with the feverish madness
That is only rid of with special ways
Known by the sun-cat with the coat of rays
Speckled beneath the forest canopy:
Go seek my cousin, he will say to me.
Taking my woes to the wilds I would sing
Of the burning sorrows that blaze, that bring
Even the puma to cry from his heights
Into the deep jungle in the deep night.

Lumine prophetico

To the melody of Lilium floruit.

With a Manifest Book

A Light has come to us

Reviving Mecca’s font

With a Sacred Trust:

Adam’s flower foretold

By Moses and Jesus.

{Refrain}

Eia, eia

Eia in monte lucis

Praecepit Veritatis

Vocans nos recitare

Et libro cognoscere

Ad primum misterium

De propheticis sigillum

Quod veritas aeterna:

Non est deus nisi Allah

Mahometus est propheta.

Through him all is redeemed

And harmony restored.

He is the gate between

Mankind and the Lord.

In heaven he is praised,

On earth he is adored.

He is a mercy sent

By the Merciful One.

No one has equaled him

Since the world was begun;

No one will equal him

Should the world be undone.

His beauty makes silence

Burst into endless song.

His majesty mutes all

Makes love speechless and withdrawn.

His alchemy makes gold,

Transmutes virtue from wrong.

May his name be hallowed

In every place with every breath

May he and his nation

Like Abraham be blessed

And to his truthfulness

May all creation attest.

May the words of Rafi‘

To Muhammad ascend,

He is altogether lovely

My beloved, my friend;

And better praise than this

Be upon him without end.

The Narwhal

“You, the woman; I, the man; this, the world:And each is the work of all…

You, the sought for; I, the seeker; this, the search: And each is the mission of all.”

– Kenneth Patchen, “The Character of Love Seen as a Search for the Lost”

I watch you question and grope
The silent heavens for how to cope
With what stars fall from the sky;
I tell you to breathe, accept, hope.

You see indecipherable moments fly
That leave the white sea unicorn to die
Thrashing among the blood-frothing waves;
I tell you they are destiny.

You find that empty graves and filled graves
Terrify your nights and bathe
Your nude body in pulsing fire;
I tell you of spirits gathered in caves.

You let your heart starve, your soul tire
Fearing destiny’s crown of briar
And the universal skull;
I tell you death is more than to expire.

And I want to tell you you are beautiful
And holy, and even in this crucible
There is more mercy than wrath
And more to faith than is provable—

That our souls are pilgrims, each a half,
And that if you long for the endless path
The destination for you also longs;
That you must smile before you laugh.

And if all human voice was gathered in a song
It would sing of you and me,
Of your beauty and my beauty,
And melt into silence, to which it belongs.

The Garden

Walking within they do not know it,
Planted at their feet, the buried memories;
They only see a garden, bushes, trees
Not the secrets so delicately knit.
The flowers are silent to them, silent;
They do not say a word, but quietly
They are looked at, and admired quietly,
They whisper nothing and nothing relent.
Yet for me all the flowers keep you near,
The orchids and the heliconia,
Bromeliad and bougainvillea;
The plants you love that I in turn hold dear.
It is a living temple wherein
I come to find you; you smell of jasmine.

A Waste of Breath

It’s the last temptation in the convent
To hold to what has passed or will yet leave
Like shadows among the water’s descent
Or shifting clouds that tempt us to perceive.
How many set aside their beads to dote
On a secret passion, a silent will;
Forgetting those who scorned to build their boat
And drowned among a roar of foam and swill.
Foolish are wistful thoughts for ancient days
Or days whose only future is a whim;
Better to quarantine such a malaise
And devote oneself to routine and hymn
Because the heart is difficult to learn
And its yearnings too heavy to return.

On politics

I think perhaps it’s not so bad
This politic, this raging fad:
Some views agree with my beliefs,
At least they have some nice motifs.
But before I join the grand old man
I speak with a Republican
And despite this and despite that
I fair better with a Democrat.

I agree and object as much
With both, each lack the common touch:
One, too liberal with what’s good;
The other won’t change what he should.
But I think no one has more right
To bask in Columbia’s light
No matter what they speak or wear;
I think that nothing else is fair.

The elephant long lost his way
And is too angry or too grey.
And till they leave Muslims alone
I think I’ll leave them to their own:
I like the thoughts that they once wove
But Republicans themselves I loathe.
So I pray that through this impasse
Triumphs the Democratic ass.
They may not all be my kind of men
But they’ll have to do for now. Amen.

What is sought?

I find it when the rising dawn
Touches on the windowsill,
And on the misted lawn
When the sun itself seems distilled:

The moment that is yet detached
From the moment it was born,
That fills the heart in which it hatched
With peace above all pain and scorn.

I find it in the croaking night,
The twittering day, the steady plod
Of life and death, and in the light
That guides the heart adoring God.