a love confession p. 3

I want to tell you I love you
but I know how easy it is to love from afar
and I want to tell you I love you when the shit hits the fan
when there is nothing to win or lose, nothing left concealed
I want to tell you I love you when there is no distance between us
when proximity has demolished the museum display in my heart
and when those three words are no longer another step
in a ladder leading to some heaven of my imagination.

a love confession p 2

Little by little, and in volcanic eruptions
we drifted apart like continental plates.
Said we loved the sea so we let it come between us.
We followed the flow of the tide with the full moon
tattooed in blood and water on our foreheads.
Agoraphobics, we couldn't fill spaces between us with enough stars
so we blamed proximity, too far, too near, too distant, too dear.
Accused the sun and lunar cycles for the failing of our sight
pointed fingers at the winds and they carried away our excuses
graciously left us in silence to listen to the beating of the heart's sea.

Can you hear them? The waves pleading, raging, roaring, seeping
they spend their lives through storm and salt, ice and vapor
man made pollutants and all manners of filter feeders
looking for something they have never seen
And one day, they find it, crashing upon it to kiss its' shores
before faithfully embarking on the return journey
each hoping they may be worthy of reunion with the ocean's core.

confessions p 24

No.
Not the heavens nor the hells.
No.
Not the words of scripture.
Nor the ideology of man.

I can not explain the endlessness
that taught my knees the speech of the ground.
I know just as these words are only shadows of tears
So too is this reality a mere shadow of the next.

before bed

Now that the day has ended
what do I have to say ?
Have I done all I could?
Have I gotten better at something?
Have I overcome a fear?
Have I tried a different approach to the same problem?
Have I been truthful to myself?
Have I reached out to a friend?
Did I really listen when spoken to?
Did I strive for excellence in some way?
Did I test my boundaries? challenge my perceptions?
Did I train my body, mind or soul?
Did I commit? Did I make a vow or renew an old oath?
Did I keep the word?
Did I pay respects to my parents? the elders or ancestors?
Did I maintain the sacred bond of friendship?
Did I chip away at the mountain on my back?

Heroes

Remember your heroes
Remember their journeys
The upward slopes they navigated to find themselves
Their rites of passage, how they yearned
Remember their blood, their hearts ablaze
As they burned, for something which even they couldn't yet see.
Remember your heroes
Their memory is sacred
They have been pre-sent to you
As roadsigns, maps through which you may discover yourself.

Remembrance is divine.
It is a spiritual goldmine
It is braille for the blind
It is the cover of darkness for Love's fugitives
Remembrance is divine
It is your holy book that is yet to be writ
It is the light of the sun, it gives and gives.
It is the sanctum of the spirit in decline
It is the elixir of madmen and mystics, the lover's wine
It is all of your heroes cheering at the finish line
It is a friend's encouraging hand
Remembrance is divine
It is a garden in a wasteland.
It is the relief of speech in a room full of mimes
It is a captain in a ship left unmanned
It is the price of the soul's truth paid back in kind
It is a life raft for the sea stranded
And a candle in a prison cell for the damned
It is you and me as one if you would be so inclined
Dear wonder of the stars, leave your fears behind
And remember your heroes
Because remembrance, is, divine.

ruminations p. 2

At any given time
somewhere, someone
wishes they had your problems.

***

The soil of Earth
is a woman's womb
dark, damp
nurturing undergrowth.

***

Stars don't tire of shining
They just give off light
When they are most needed.

***

I have seen the face
of my enemy
and it looks just like my own

***

I saw a beggar
in the guise of a king
not a king of men and riches
but a king of his own desires

***

I made ladders out of lovers
to the divine; they carried me up
away from what appears to be my self

the Old Country

Plastic soccer balls
A garden hose in the bathroom
Milkmen in the morning
Melting ice cream
Fresh baked bread baking on a bed of stones
Cartoons from countries that haven't sanctioned ours
Condensation on the steel communal cup
Chained to an ice water tank in sweltering heat 

The sharp rap of the school disciplinarian's ruler
On fingers and palms
The sweet sound of school bells
Accentuated by the azan
Running water in the washrooms of local mosques
Bare feet on hand-woven carpets
Minarets, high rises and luxury buildings
The Jurassic limestone of the Alborz mountain range  

Iridescent Rosaris and black Chadors
Sandaled feet and prayer beads
Murmur of a grandmother's reverence
A blue glass eye dangling over the dashboard
Sidelong glances from dark eyes
Dancing beneath arching brows
Young couples discreetly holding hands
As they skirt along the mountains
Melting into the foliage
Fading from sight into the crevices of sheesha cafes
Along hiking paths leading to secret oases of tree-shade
And  the bubbling giggle of mountain streams

Conversation and companionship in communal cabs
The relief of air conditioning
The melody of heavy traffic
Over-heated radiators
The din of the bazaar
Unabashed stares in the marketplace
The cloying fragrance of rosewater and saffron
Pick up trucks on the side of the road selling seasonal fruit
70's Yamaha motorcycles backfiring
Into the glare of brand new BMWs

Street vendors hawking flowers and fresh walnuts
Chewing gum and knockoff cheetos
Charcoal-fired corn and skewers of liver
Mp3s of the latest hits and scrolls of Hafiz poetry
Randomly selected by trained canaries.


***

azan: call to prayers
rosari: headscarf
chador: bodyscarf

Smile

My love,
why are you so sad?
Why so heartbroken, my love?

Don't you see
My love, don't you see
Everything is singing for you and me

Don't you know last night
the moon climbed up over your window
just to share the sun's kiss with you?

Don't you know
every time you watched the stars
they were watching you back
as they made wishes off every turn of your hand?

My love, don't you know
the waves spent all night
writing you poetry on the sand?

Don't you see
My love, don't you see
Everything is singing for you and me

Don't you know every time you dance
seemingly still stars hurl themselves
across the night sky like comets?

Don't you know last night when you smiled through the scars
heavenly spheres aligned and the light in your eyes
lit a path to the very heart of the cosmos?

Don't you know each time you laugh
constellations fall out of alignment
and have to relocate their scattered parts?

Don't you know celestial bodies made pilgrimages to your bedside
every time you peeled away another layer of yourself
and emerged with wings from the cocoon of your ego?

They danced for you when you were born
a celebration unlike any other in all the multiple dimensions
eclipsed in greatness only by the birth of birth itself.
From the lowest to the highest
all the denizens of the universe bowed before you
prostrated before your feet, they all bowed
not in worship but acknowledgement
of that divine reality, the only reality
from whose likeness we were compelled to life
and to whose likeness we will return from life.

In the meantime my love, just remember the words
of that master Moulana Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
when he says the wound is where the light enters you.
So let us paint together a blood portrait of the constellations
that shine from the dark skies of our hearts
so we may see our own light when the hour draws dark.
And should our fingers stumble onto the stitches
holding together the seams of [other] shattered hearts
then we shall kiss each and every one of those sacred scars
and help one another remember our birth among the stars.

broken whole

I came to you
like one searching in pitch black for the light-switch

I came to you
sick of all my broken words
seeking another tongue
and when my fumbling fingers finally found that light-switch
it was your voice that spoke through my mouth

I came to you
from a land of setting suns
seeking another dawn

I came to you
carrying the pieces of my self
burdened and broken with the weight of my own forgetfulness

I offered you these fragments of my self
in a platter of jigsaw puzzle pieces
hoping you could figure me out
and make me whole again

How was I supposed to know
that being whole is just an illusion?

I came to you
seeking salvation in a line from a poem that you once wrote
I came to you seeking a solution
giving you the scattered jigsaw of my soul
in some wild hope that you would be the one
who knew how it all fit together

And you took those pieces
and you let them slip from your fingers
like autumn leaves, all the while
looking straight in my eyes
looking straight into my heart
and you said

Even this
even this illusion of salvation
was necessary for you to know 
that to be whole is to be broken
and to be broken is to be whole

***

I never left the sacred ground
of that point in time where we met

And instead of picking up those broken pieces
with which I approached you
I now carry your memory

Those shards of my old self
still lie where they fell from your fingers
unmoved from the winds
they have taken root in the earth
and grown with Spring into shoots and sprouts
spelling out my renewed vows
against this inheritance of forgetfulness

And even this
even all of this
even sacred scars and stitches holding together shattered hearts
even the forgetfulness that I lament
has been nothing short of divinely necessary
for me to remember the echo of your name

confessions p 23

We laugh, but we do not really laugh
we cry, but we have forgotten how to weep
we breathe, but we do not subside
and come to life with each breath

I am realizing more and more
that many of us look but we do not see
we touch, but do not really feel
we hear, but do not really listen

we love, but we do not burn
we live, but we do not die
because that which is already dead does not die
and we leave, without ever having really been here in the first place

2012

re-enlightenment

a turn back inward

the search for the lost heart

the soul's inquiry

quest for self-knowledge

to find the origin

a rediscovery of meaning

the triumph of mercy

an internalization of knowledge

relearning the language of the heart

unlearning what is not heart

remembering roots

a reification of the soul. 

conversation with the heart p. 2

The beloved asked her lover
when did you first love me?

The lover replied
I loved you before mirrors
before I could recognize my own reflection.
I loved you before I knew the words "I" and "You"
I loved you before names
and before the myriad forms.
I loved you before the need for any number greater than one.
I loved you before the sea of beginnings forever born.
I loved you before the Moon became enamored of the Earth.
I loved you blind, before sight, before light
before death and before life.
I loved you when there was only Love
and Time and Space had to be created
just so Love could find expression.