FROM A PARTICULAR HEIGHT

Posted on January 1, 2014 by danielabdalhayymoore

horse and sugar

From a particular height
a stone bird is sought

From another altitude
silk rain’s beseeched

From yet another more daring
God’s outline in the dark

His perspective from a peak
over all the world

The heart like a pinnacle
scaled in a blink

blind the outer eye
the inner eye opened

The journey entailing
a wholehearted silence

the iciness warmed
by the charge of our blood

We come back with nothing
and no words to say it

more precious than all the
things we can name

all radiance captured
in uncapturable space

the subtlest lineaments
of His indescribable Face

A door opened quietly
the whole room dissolved

The house dark at last
and everyone sleeping

The whisper that lights up
the five known worlds

This and the next
and the three realms between

Mulk Malakut Jabarut
at the tips of our heartbeats

vision soft as a feather
enfolding the moon

We sit very still
and it all comes inside us

The altitudes turned
into generous gestures

Open hand for the horses
to nibble sugar in bliss

in the barn where the owl sits
as darkness comes down

Take from the silence
what words you can

Add your silence and they rise
to their proper dimensions

From a particular height
where a stone bird is sought

from another altitude
where silk rain’s beseeched

and from another more daring
God’s outline in the dark

His perspective from a peak
over all the worlds

___________________________

12/30/13 (from Next Life)

Posted in ABDAL-HAYY'S POETRY, ISLAM/SUFISM, Light, Love, Love of God, Muslim Poetry, New Years Poem, POEMS, POETRY, signs of allah, Silence, Sufi Poetry, The Soul | Leave a comment

Sphere of Light

Posted on December 27, 2013 by danielabdalhayymoore

SPHERE OF LIGHT

Waiting fifteen minutes to Fajr Prayer
just this side of the

end of the world
kaleidoscoping inward toward us all

escalators and fiery stairways
plummeting through purple smoke totally

overpopulated each step with
people fleeing what’s all around and

inside us
except for occasional beings floating in

huge translucent spheres of a golden
light whose eyelids flutter slightly

at each explosion but whose
heartbeats are even louder than each

explosion and somehow
soothing in the smoke-blacked air

to everyone on their way upward
step by step out of the crumbling chaos

Buildings and mountains become
dissolving dancers in Allah’s perfect

choreography

in this perfectly silent room
at the starting point of Fajr

in Allah’s perfectly executed fluttering
choreography each instant

in this sphere of light
we are all in

___________________________________________
12/24/13 (from He Comes Running, in progress)

Posted in ABDAL-HAYY'S POETRY, ISLAM/SUFISM, Light, Muslim Poetry, Muslim Prayer, POEMS, POETRY, saints, signs of allah, Sufi Poetry, The Soul | Leave a comment

Where the Greatest Wisdom Is

Posted on December 18, 2013 by danielabdalhayymoore

pewter dish

 

Where the greatest wisdom is
is a pewter dish in a

room filled with light

at the base of a chasm of basalt
and the sun tilted on top

like a purple feather in flames

How do you get there
except on your own speed

and with silence at your lips
and boundaries falling away

in your heart

who has had the rigorous
training of stallions

and the motherly compassion
of mares

whose tongues lick off the
afterbirth to let the

light out?

How do we get there
except by the bricked up door of

God’s Grace when
He decides to make its bricks

traces

and the road traveled to be the
very place of its manifestation

His touch all over you
His taste in your mouth?

__________________________
5/11/13 (from The Soul’s Home, in preparation)

Posted in ABDAL-HAYY'S POETRY, ETERNITY, fana fillah, ISLAM/SUFISM, Light, Love of God, Muslim Poetry, POEMS, POETRY, signs of allah, Silence, Sufi Poetry, The Essence | Leave a comment

BLIZZARD BACCHANAL

Posted on December 12, 2013 by danielabdalhayymoore

BLIZZARD BACCHANAL

As if the earth were to go on and on forever
   another four inch layer of snow silently covers
      time and space out the window
stretching all the way to the ocean,

icy white powder piled up on garden furniture out back
  salvaged two summers ago from
      four doors down as being
        paint-spattered but still usable,

snow covers the cars out front
lined up in all one direction, carpeted with
   white, granted an ermine blanket,
sweetly docile with iced
   windows and frozen locks, unlike
      gas-guzzling road hogs, more like
         obedient slaves,

it covers the park at the end of the street
with its wild trails over fallen tree trunks
deep in snow, growth stopped in its
   tracks under repeated onslaughts of
       angelic frosting, the
    small mammals enduring, small
          insects gathering their eggs for a
Spring resurgence or savage revenge,
 
the palace of pure nature wall to wall with
    snow-crystals waiting for
       princely footprints, for
small quick prints of the princess to
   imprint themselves or for
long loopy chorus lines of angels to
  suddenly cavort on fresh snow in the
      little wood, pixieish 

post-midnight bacchanals on

pure white floors, under full moonlight,
time frozen still,

space as beautiful as a
    mouse ear in all this

radiance!
___________________________
3/8/96 (from Miracle Songs for the Millennium, being edited for publication)

 

Posted in ABDAL-HAYY'S POETRY, Light, Muslim Poetry, POEMS, POETRY, signs of allah, snow, Sufi Poetry, winter | 2 Comments

ETERNITY

Posted on November 16, 2013 by danielabdalhayymoore

eternity

ETERNITY
                 

                                    Eternity is in love with the productions of time
                                    — William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

1

Sad alabasters and perky
peacock feathers turn to

rust in our hands

Wave our hands across their smeared
faces and see angelic glances through

silver eyes

No one will see you when you
disappear from sight

yet you persist in existence
greater than before

rung around with neon rings and
sounds of glass like trembling waters

Don’t rush things ancient ones
let one foot fall behind

the other on the mountain passes
and fresh sunlight warm you

as dust filters through our fingers
each flake calling out our name as it

drifts backwards in the air

unreconstituteable

and a sweet nothingness

God willing when it happens
we’ll still be there

2

Bright splinter! Do you
always seek behind appearances?

Are you dark metal under the smoke?
Sharp glare behind a smile?

We scan you to be our torchlight here
every spider corner revealed

every turn disclosed

Why have I only seen you now?
Is it the meltdown of the snow?

 Is it the Great Dissolve?

 
3

Eternity shimmers in the room among the
bright solid furniture that is the

furniture of Eternity the bookcases and lamps
the bed I wake from and the

sound of the silence here that is its
child swirling ocean of time

washing us in its blessings in constant
motion of cylinder within cylinder of

intangible turning invisible to the touch
in which we age minute by minute

inwardly forward but motionless in
Eternity impossible to calculate except in

angelic terms whose bright silver
dazzles the mind beyond its usual

earthly limitations whose walls and
doors and streets and skies are

sweetly blasted apart by the dimensions of
Eternity and we

live in it unbeknownst to us else we’d
faint at the pure nothingness we are

and God’s Magnificence always facing us
beyond even Eternity’s confines and paltry

measurements to show us anything but His
resplendent Face in absolutely

everything that is in its instant of being
the Living One from end to end and all

height and depth possible to what
has no existence except in Him

alone Light upon Light right in
front of us and within us

shimmering in Eternity
ashimmer in time
________________
11/15 (from That Particular Firefly, in progress)

Posted in ABDAL-HAYY'S POETRY, amazement, ETERNITY, fana fillah, ISLAM/SUFISM, Light, Love, Miracles, Muslim Poetry, POEMS, POETRY, signs of allah, SOUND, Sufi Poetry | 5 Comments

Miracle of Sound at the Ka’ba

Posted on October 16, 2013 by danielabdalhayymoore

Salt Prayers Collage

What sounds are heard around God’s House?

First, utter silence, silence within silence. Then
its echo,
more silent still.

A silence that sits deep under the Throne of God –
all other silence surrounds it and
slowly turns.

Every other silence partakes of that silence. Silence in
eyes, silence in tongues, silence in the
womb, the silence of death.

The Ka’ba sits in the
shaft of that silence from the height of heaven,
and generates silence.

Then, just around this great circle of silence
the sound of an ocean, not of water or salt,
but of human longing, aswirl with
sound, slow roar, slow-motion crash of
surf, suspended animation of all
tremendous sounds in creation, the
exhalation of giant beasts, outbreath of
earth as God created caves and
sea depths and

seismic shifts.

Then more distinctly,
articulating what shines through both
silence and sound,
the Word of God,
that aural text that floats from the
Heart of Light into the hearts of mankind,
tongue-tripped into articulate words, formed and
filled with breath,
flowing like the sea, but from
sea-depths of meaning,

light to the eyes and
sweet relief to the heart.

Then out from that circle,
the sound of all human speech, words of
admonition, snatches of
conversation, starlight of
God’s Compassion sprinkled throughout it,
Turkish bursts, Arabic stutter, a child’s distant cry,
then roar again, sea-surf,
silence,
silence above all, and the
twelve-dimensional
echo of that silence.
Then a phrase of Urdu, Afghani, Malay,
low rumble of
Qur’an recitation, pauses, people
looking around, metallic
clatter from far away, the
rhythmic supplications of a group of pilgrims
circling God’s House.

Then the click sound of a microphone in sonic superspace
turning on.

Then words enveloped by the Word,

the Word enveloped in a roar,

the roar enveloped in silence,

the articulate silence of God, then

the silence of silence.

Then the echo of that silence.

Then the looking around.
_______________________________________________________________________________
12/26/95 (from Sparrow on the Prophet’s Tomb, The Ecstatic Exchange, 2009)

Posted in 'Eid Greetings, ABDAL-HAYY'S POETRY, amazement, Hajj, ISLAM/SUFISM, Kaaba, Light, POEMS, POETRY, signs of allah, Silence, SOUND, Sufi Poetry, The Path, The Soul | 1 Comment

HURIYYAH

Please take a moment to view photos of Soraya Syed Sander’s exhibit now up in London at Leighton House… our daughter-in-law, married to Inspiraldesign’s Mukhtar Sanders… Well, they’re both Inspiraldesigners… Her exhibit and the dancer are tremendous…
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=526563080759968&set=a.526563054093304.1073741828.381604928589118&type=1&theater
Posted on October 9, 2013 by danielabdalhayymoore | 1 Comment

UK VISIT AND POEM

Posted on September 7, 2013 by danielabdalhayymoore

Poetry posterTHE UK VISIT includes, besides the two presentations in Norwich (Friday the 13th at 7PM and Saturday the 14th at 3:30PM), a poetry evening at Rumi’s Cave, Kilburn, London, on Saturday, 21 September, at 7PM, under the auspices of gracious Sukina Pilrim, et. al., insha’Allah.

FROM THE SOFT ROPE WE ARE

From the soft rope we are
from the jagged tear in a canvas we are

from the wrecked and twisted bicycle we are
from the lengthy shadow of a lost world we are

from flickers at the edge of a dark wood we are
from an echoing empty stadium at midnight we are

from crumbs left for birds on a windowsill we are
from the signal sent from a ship’s fo’c’sle we are

From land sighted and land ignored we are
from polished silver laid out perfectly we are

From a peak wreathed in roseate cloud we are
from a low-lying hamlet under brown smoke we are

From rows of burgeoning grape-trellises we are
from a sunny valley between green hills we are

From the spontaneous defenses of our sovereignty we are
from silence in the midst of chaos we are

From dust flakes falling down an endless chute we are
from an abrupt announcement at the table we are

From a door slammed and a door left open we are
From blue fog suddenly filling a deep canyon we are

From no one left in the meeting hall but us we are
from just one more face in the billowing crowd we are

From oft-blessed in abundance from we know not where we are
from bereft never knowingly visited by angels we are

From fervent supplications each dawn religiously we are
from the last whispered breath of prayer when we die we are

when even stillness stands still
right where we are

O God in Your Magnificence and Glory
Who moves us and moves in us

without Whom we would not be
whoever and wherever we are

Bring out from us what light You will
and quench us with every breath

in Your only existence
when no more than a shadow of a shadow of a shadow we are

Small flickering light in Your window we are
tiny birdsong of distant jubilant whistling

heard near and far
we are
______________________________________________
9/5/2013 (from The Soul’s Home, in progress)

Posted in ABDAL-HAYY'S POETRY, fana fillah, ISLAM/SUFISM, Light, Love of God, Muslim Poetry, Muslim Prayer, POEMS, POETRY, Prayer, signs of allah, Sufi Poetry | Leave a comment

You’ll Sing a Song

Posted on August 24, 2013 by danielabdalhayymoore

 

You’ll sing a song from somewhere out of your depths
and light will hit it and it’ll be
a diamond brooch worn at the back of
Layla’s head in a sunny glade

it’ll be a drop of water hanging at the
tip of a leaf in a dark rainforest radiating diamond light

a deep chasm with a train trestle above it and an
old fashioned train chugging along
oblivious to all danger over a giant arc filled with blue smoke

when you open your heart to sing
the whole room becomes a single ear

or even no ear at all but more like a
sharp point say of a needle about to
enter a cloth to sew
a saintly sleeve to the main body of the divine garment

the exact tip of the needle the sound-receiver
for the entire universe made drunk in the
sudden echoing orbit of your song
___________________________________

11/14/2001 (from Where Death Goes, the Ecstatic Exchange,3009 )

Posted in ABDAL-HAYY'S POETRY, amazement, Diamond, fana fillah, ISLAM/SUFISM, Light, Love, Love of God, Music of the Spheres, Muslim Poetry, POEMS, POETRY, saints, song, SOUND, Sufi Poetry, The Soul | 3 Comments

TYGER TYGER / BLAKE / MOORE

Posted on August 23, 2013 by danielabdalhayymoore

TIGER

 

 

THE TYGER (from Songs Of Experience)

By William Blake

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

1794

Posted in Blake's Tyger, Life of Pi, POEMS, POETRY, signs of allah, Sufi Poetry, Tigers, William Blake recitation | Leave a comment

ROOSTER 2

A sandwich at noon is enough to
frighten a field of crows

 A telephone ringing in an empty room is
answered by the wind

A road leading upward has a
bicycle on it and two trees

When the blessings were brought in
the sun rolled to a stop

Going past the stables all the black horses
flared their nostrils at once

The month of light was sealed and sent to its
Divine Recipient the year we

lived in trees and
sang at dawn

There’s a stubbornness in refusing to flow
out the gate onto the fresh fields of

clover and recently turned pasturage

The celebration began when the moon
turned into a table set with

silver utensils and Samarkand oranges

Rainbows seemed to fill every window
from multiple light sources

The room spun around while we
remained still but it never went

faster than the earth’s rotation
and the spiralling stars

Young girl acrobats stood on
each other’s shoulders almost reaching

the moon

Daylight fills every corner and awakens
the mouse family

Grandpa told this in story form and it
all cohered

But today is another day and the
dolphins have all departed

back to their pods

Does the earth revolve toward us or
away from us?

Does the sky pass behind us
or ahead of us?

Take a step in any direction
and you’re home

where the celebration continues
until dawn though the

rooster may not crow it open
flopping his red crown

I’ve covered a lot of ground sitting here
and don’t intend to correct it

I try not to be out with my sheep
when God visits my hovel

but the north side of the mountain gets chilled
before a fire can be properly stoked

I hear a buzz of words in the air
mixed with a buzz of insects and the

usual high frequency buzz in my ears
I take as celestial music

Deciphering is all we do and we do it
best in our sleep

I greet anyone intrepid enough to speak
and anyone foolhardy enough to listen

It’s over now
The dawn is up

A new day’s begun
_________________
30 Ramadan

Posted on August 9, 2013 by danielabdalhayymoore | 2 Comments

Elusive Crescent

Posted on August 8, 2013 by danielabdalhayymoore

NEW MOON

Ah coy crescent hiding in a blush of sky
so many want to see you and

hold you to our hearts
each in our own perimeters however

spread across the earth all searching
for your quick eyeblink that promises

untold bounteous rewards for our
month of doing without in

obedience to first sighting you nearly
hidden as always in your rosy cheek of clouds

What a miracle! That there could be
only one of you when so many

hearts have mirrors extended skyward to reflect your
silvery light asliver with such slight

shiveriness and so soon
gone again below the curve of our brows

And why not many crescents in God’s
Generous Splendor that not each

statue of us stand stock still on the

exact same spot of day but each of your
lovers has your breath upon our glass

a mist of love you sign your shy
name to

furtive in the sky

as we end our fast?
___________________
29 Ramadan

Posted in ABDAL-HAYY'S POETRY, crescent moon, End of Ramadan, fasting, fasting poems, ISLAM/SUFISM, Muslim Poetry, POEMS, POETRY, Ramadan Poetry, signs of allah, Sufi Poetry | Leave a comment

At the Pivot End of a Life

Posted on August 7, 2013 by danielabdalhayymoore

HORSES

At the pivot end of a life
(between this world and the next)

all the sleek black horses lined up for
inspection

all the torn and tattered love letters tied in their
appropriate bundles

and the words we’ve left in the air like
washing hanging out to dry

(some come back to us having been
happily stretched and whitened while others

track us down with yeah sad and
unsightly stains)

At the turning point where the
dark woods ahead begin to take

shape showing deeper and deeper shadows and
sharper contrasts

and the miles of galleries behind us with our
finger-paintings hung straight or hopelessly

askew are suddenly
neon lit

And at the poignant points of gratitude after
hurricane or flood earthquake or

Dracula-threat that turns out to be
nothing after all but

incessant mouse-squeaks

and we find ourselves high and dry in His Mercy as
usual with a

strong wind blowing through our clothes
and our breaths more mixed now with the

singsong melodies of the surrounding air
on both purple-shadowy mountain peak or

front porch on a couch with spouse in a
delicious downpour

But the pivot-point anytime anywhere
at any point

and the long or short lines of well-wishers
are everyone or no one as the death woods

open up doorways between trees and show
shadows both luscious and soberingly frightening

one step ahead of us with our
one foot still firm where we are in life

and the other tentatively raised for
forward movement

waiting a moment for the upsurge in our
hearts to show us which way ahead to go

(and ahead the
best place willingly or unwillingly

to go)

And this poem has no way of ending except this
pivot point in expectant tightrope

suspension between
this world with its presumed

finalities and the
next with its personal

Godly apocalypse somewhat
domesticated for use

at the constant and immediate
swivelingly bewildered and

drunkenly reflective

pivot end of a life
___________________
28 Ramadan

Posted in ABDAL-HAYY'S POETRY, Death, fana fillah, fasting, fasting poems, ISLAM/SUFISM, Light, Love of God, Muslim Poetry, POEMS, POETRY, Ramadan Poetry, signs of allah, Sufi Poetry | 1 Comment

Irene

Posted on August 6, 2013 by danielabdalhayymoore

GARDEN 1

(Note: I attribute the title and theme of this poem, based on the word “Irene” to Shaykh Hamza Yusuf. While we were working on a translation, The Burdah, or The Prayer of the Oppressed, he wanted to use the adjective “irenic” which I didn’t know at first, and then thought too unusual, when “peaceful” would do. As he loves to introduce perhaps somewhat rare but true and useful words back into the English vocabulary, his choice won out… and I learned a new use for the word and name, Irene, with all honor due. This poem written in 2011 when the hurricane bifurcated past our home in Philadelphia, and came back together again, it seems, to ravage parts north, may Allah bless all who suffered, and grant them His Irenic Grace.)

A raindrop big as a small
country is landing on our back garden

a powerful fragment at a time then
running in a fast moving runnel down the

back alley and all this even before
Hurricane Irene hits with full force

and as Irene means “peace” so
“Good Night Irene” as the

old song says may you
turn away from our shore and

dizzy yourself

out at sea somewhere to a
merriment of dolphins and a wild

spinning of silent dervish creatures of the
deeps Oh Allah! Preserve us from Your

watery Wrath that we might
see Your Might of Power with

humility

and flow in runnels with Your Perfect
Calm

a wall of water we walk through to Your
pure oasis

as the night wears on
_____________________
8/27/2011 (during Hurricane Irene offshore east coast)
27 Ramadan
(Philadelphia)

Posted in ABDAL-HAYY'S POETRY, fasting, Hurrican Irene, ISLAM/SUFISM, Love of God, Muslim Poetry, Night of Power, POEMS, POETRY, Prayer for Safety, Ramadan Poetry, signs of allah, Sufi Poetry | Leave a comment

CAROUSEL

NIGHTTIME SESSIONS OF LIGHT

Intense nighttime sessions of Light
spangle the planetary air and the

lunar crescendo yup I said the

lunar crescendo as we
head toward Ramadan’s exit back into

temptation’s roundelay yup I said

temptation’s roundelay that seems to go round and
round though for one blessed

month a year we step off it whether it
grinds to a halt or goes off its

spiraling pivot with sparks
screeching the asphalt as in

“Strangers on a Train” that
catastrophic carousel atilt in extremity

for all Eternity

But a crystally nighttime dome appears and we
look out onto blessed Blakean moonlight

and daytime geese across the sky above us
honk the Divine Name as

clearly as can be as they head toward
Canada in a fine summer rain

and we’re back on earth again
_____________________________
26 Ramadan
__________________________________________<br LEAVES

THE REPETITIONS OF SAINTS
                
The repetitions of saints flow through every
leaf and glisten hanging by threads from

branches of Divine Breath interwoven

in the universe’s big starry basket tilted in His
burning Glance and suspended by His

cool ocular steadiness throughout time to tip out
lively bubbles of intensest Grace in

which we live and that live in us for
all time to come as we

slide through the billion worlds by the pulse of those
repetitions heartbeat by heartbeat in the

saints’ huge bodies
thinner than a hair

held aloft for a nanosecond
in the air

I sit near the saint’s empty bed in his
green room where so many angels make for

barely enough elbow-space so
tightly packed angelic

elbow to elbow and
wing to incandescent wing

and everything’s become a giant ear
on a wave rising perceptibly entrance-ward

to God’s perfect everywhere
___________________
26 Ramadan

Posted on August 5, 2013 by danielabdalhayymoore | 1 Comment

Two Poems: If We Woke Up One Morning / Blue Circles

Posted on August 4, 2013 by danielabdalhayymoore

WORLD WENT AWAY

 

IF WE WOKE UP ONE MORNING

If we woke up one morning to find
we didn’t exist

would the fast be abrogated?

Or be more completely fulfilled?

If we were a
vague fractal outline among mountain crags or

mounded clouds

or mingled in aromatic breezes through
maple leaves in an

urban backyard whose branches lean
over a back alley fence

or a silence among howls of wolves
or the screeching of bus brakes

and we existed only as a peaceable serenity in a
transparent atmosphere that could

take place anywhere anytime on earth

watching through eyes God watches through
into the poignant brutalities of His

creation as well as its upsurging and
overpoweringly intense Light through it all

and we were here but not here just as
Ramadan’s four or more invisible dimensions

slide down into our lives in time and almost
make us non-existent in a

strange way with sharper sensitivities to
the fall of each sparrow or birth of each

moth who lands on our bathroom
mirror and suddenly

doubles itself facing itself where
before there was none

and we
see it land in its

bright fragile beauty
and are amazed
_____________________
25 Ramadan
_____________________________

TIGHTROPE WALKER

BLUE CIRCLES

Tell again the story of how you saw the
two blue circles rhyme

as in a circus

and how the ground was wet and the
light hard to see by

and how a zebra loomed out of the
shadows and

caught you off guard as you
walked past the rotating bird

One night of the year when
God is so close you can almost see a

breath along the ground that
can’t be explained any other way

than divine
and the animals grow still

and the quiet becomes a
dimension in which we dwell

That night like no other
showing the worth of our waiting

and what we are made of
nothing we can quantify

of a worth whose worthlessness we
cannot estimate and a

worthlessness whose every one of us
is monarch of our little space

where God dwells and king becomes
slave to live in pure

mathematical harmony
with His self-erasing Infinity
 
enough light for the

blind tightrope walker to sing as she
crosses to the other side

above us
__________________________
25 Ramadan

Posted in ABDAL-HAYY'S POETRY, circus, fasting, fasting poems, heaven and earth, ISLAM/SUFISM, Light, Love of God, Miracles, Music of the Spheres, Muslim Poetry, Night of Power, POEMS, POETRY, Ramadan Fable, Ramadan Poetry, signs of allah, Space, Sufi Poetry | Leave a comment

Ramadan is a Gorgeous Chorus

Posted on August 3, 2013 by danielabdalhayymoore

DRUNK IN ALLAH blog

Ramadan is a gorgeous chorus
repeated in a mist above glades of

green wheat bending in blue light

Ramadan meets itself coming in from
the rain with its face slick and shining

and sits at our table as it vanishes with all its
viands back into pure spirit set with

foaming golden goblets of Paradise

A warm breeze aromatic with jasmine
rises around our bodies as we

pass between miles of monotone graves on our
way to Eternity’s low doorway

A fountain appears in the middle of
everything and in its splashing music

proclaims exactly why we endure the
fast and how He will embrace us

on the other side in the
sweet exhaustion of our endurance

Scrolls of fire turn into waterfalls of
ice in the air all around us

each with our own particular wisdom

as the world sets like a planet under the
moon’s horizon of our lunar month

and we let its ribbons and streamers
go as it pursues its worldly parade

up to cliff-edge after cliff-edge of seemingly
unavoidable disaster

Ramadan has freed us and it’s for
us to remain in this concentrated

state now for Allah’s sake alone
eating the grapes of unity and sipping

its wine in every weather of
satisfaction with His

impeccable Decree
_________________
25 Ramadan

Posted in ABDAL-HAYY'S POETRY, amazement, fasting, fasting poems, Muslim Poetry, POEMS, POETRY, Ramadan Poetry, Sufi Poetry | 2 Comments

Heart & Soul

Posted on August 2, 2013 by danielabdalhayymoore

TUSCANY

 

HEART & SOUL

If all my poems seem to end up in the
same place it’s because I

also want to end up there
grateful to God and

showered by the bliss of His Face

Starting from a shadow say cast by an
alleyway in Chinatown on a dark

Wednesday or off a ship say in Nova Scotia
smelling of codfish and sea brine or

landing in Rome hoping to visit the
languorous green vineyards of Tuscany

but moving forward in the time left to us
which might be decades or ten seconds only

each footstep a compass point pinpoint on our
still unrolling map with its

expectancies and definite concisions
leaving some slack time or clenching it

tighter for God’s own utterly precise
pinpointed compass pointing

to which we can only happily concede

always going with His sweet Will and
little of our own with eyes open and

His name and deep destination
always on our lips heart and soul

or when we suddenly remember having
momentarily dreamed our little life away

to get back to it

with forward lunge and straight shot
heading out both heart and soul to seek

His fortune and its plenitudes and
none of our own or only

as much of “our own” as will
help in the project

to get us there
__________________
24 Ramadan

Posted in ABDAL-HAYY'S POETRY, Death, fasting, fasting poems, ISLAM/SUFISM, Muslim Poetry, POEMS, POETRY, Ramadan Poetry, signs of allah, Sufi Poetry, waking up | Leave a comment

Fast

Posted on August 1, 2013 by danielabdalhayymoore

ROCK

Puppets can’t break their fast
through their painted mouths

Rocks can be said to be
fasting forever

Mountain “fastnesses” are a kind of
stronghold or fortress

Colors are fast that never
cut and run

The Ramadan fast goes by day by
sometimes-uphill-day anything but

fast

though if we fasten ourselves to it
it seems to go faster

and with an “e” thrown in for
“effort” we can look

forward to a feast

and so faithfully fulfill our
fast
__________
22 Ramadan

Posted in ABDAL-HAYY'S POETRY, fasting, ISLAM/SUFISM, Muslim Poetry, POEMS, POETRY, Ramadan Poetry, Sufi Poetry | Leave a comment

carina-nebula.gif

A pinpoint and a compass point
a bismin and a galaxy

What do they have in common?

A cloud in the sky and a thought passing
through our heads with maybe even

more wind behind it

A single wave in the sea folding over and
under the great watery vastness and our

lives deeper than even the
darkest depths of its phosphorescent

darkness

with even more dazzling cosmos in them to all its
farthest reaches and most

specifically particular details though we

continue on past cosmos after all to where both
the edges and the actual edgelessness of this gorgeous

spectral universe no longer matter

and leaves the size of planets wave in
other-than-planetary breezes and rivers of a

water so sweet and fine flow to that
disappearing ocean of our mortality that

empties into even greater
waters of immortality as

defined by the promised sent Prophet to us
from The Sender of all prophets and

inspirations through time and to all
humankind out of time linking

pinpoints and counterpoints
compass points and bismins

sunrises and twilight
freedom from tyrants

and bright green skies that link these
worlds above all

in God’s most shiny and most
beauteous reflection of His

most Majestic
Face
___________________________
22 Ramadan
(bismin=in the Name of Allah)

Posted on July 31, 2013 by danielabdalhayymoore | 1 Comment