Spring evenings
Wild chilly exhilarating air
Intoxicating lilacs
You are a child again
Roaring, ecstatic freedom
Bonfires, frisbee, spaghetti on the stove
Walking through misty night fog
Delirious calm
The whole world is the same
As-Salaam
You’re the only One who’s ever given me peace
أنت السلام ومنك السلام
Youre the only One who’s ever given me complete, tearful happiness
The rest is just shadows
just shadows
So why do I bury my head in the sand
every time this sadness overtakes me
instead of running to You
يا الصمد
تباركت ذا الجلال والإكرام
Udhkur
This soul is
from a universe
bigger and wider
than the sea
and all that happens
benefits
All that happens
was written from a thousand years
All that happens
weighs ever more in the miizaan
for, or against, for, or against
Piling hasanaat or sayyi’aat
like sand grains
into mountains
into eternity
So breathe.
وذكر فإن الذكرى تنفع المؤمنين
Udhkur, ya rouhi.
This too, shall pass
though it take one-hundred years.
Windfall
What brought this
sudden breeze, this
accidental windfall, this
unexpected immersion into
deen?
This feeling of life returning
after long illness and death?
Let me see
so if someone asks me later
I can tell them.
Imaan is caused by ‘ibadah
which is caused by motivation
which is caused by imaan, isn’t it?
So,
Where did I jump into the circle?
Sub’haan Allah
Tragédie
Why does the mu’adhan sound
so very sad tonight
as if he is mourning the dead
as if he could see inside my head?
Is there anything but tragedy in this life?
Is not even joy and laughter but a mockery of pain?
If I get everything I want here
what’s the point of jannah?
Is it possible to burn with desire
to see God’s face, and nothing else?
And if it were, how differently would I live?
Perhaps the mu’adhan would make me smile.
Or perhaps I’m imagining all this
because the winter maghreb is so early.
Clash
The men here are
hard like rocks.
Clash with them like the sea waves
and they’ll break you every time.
Move silently through them for years
and one day you’ll wake up
and see the path you’ve carved.
I still feel the lines on my cheeks
where the tears have dried
and the cold on my skin
where stone tiles met my falls
because I clash.
I wonder how many other women
are waves.
Enfer
Is it true what they say, that
if someone hits you every day, say for half a century
then one day, they don’t
then you’ll miss it?
What about if someone suffers in hell for half a century
then one day their children invite them to heaven
could they come?
Or would old age leave them too petrified of change?
What if refusing it means refusing it to their children?
And their children’s children?
Their one decision determines the future of all?
Can they be considered mentally sound enough
to be entrusted with such a choice?
Especially when they’ve made the wrong one
so many times before?
And how can I live in a hell
and raise my children there
just because someone else wants to?
Just because others define heaven and hell differently?
