Eternal Companion

Hear him cry,
o worthy reciter.
Surely your tears have the ring
of [[truth]].

Meanwhile,
the whales have returned
to our wide bay to breed;
giants of the deep undergoing
their own [[soul]] journey,
stopped here
for the [[love]] of what you [[read]],
a [[book]] revealed
for all the worlds.

Might and [[mercy]]
on a straight path
from the water's [[heart]],
all in thrall before the throne.


Traces

Referenced in

Butterfly Book

It's deep autumn [[now]] , but the butterflies are still [[here]] : evergreen [[white]] and orange oracles of calm air, their wings lit…

Temple's End

We've been building this temple, quietly, the old man and me, placing with care each stone hauled [[here]] from right across our dispersed…

Unio In Separate Ability

Weeks it's taken us to get [[here]] , the last few signs of a vast surah which starts with the end and now asks me, directly, "What will…

Hacking Hearts

We were hacked and the most harrowing images were hauled up in the middle of a slide about risk and exposure. [[Here]] again is the whole…

Heaven Scent

What the world smells like right [[now]] will never [[be]] said, and my [[heart]] sings with this one certainty. Sunset's ring has…

Silver Bliss

I remember playing hide-and-go-seek so vividly I can still touch the wall we were crouched behind, the two-tone bare-brick [[white…

Joy

I press the pattern to my nose, threadbare and walked over by generations of my people, their footprints still [[here]] beneath the [[blue…

Recycled

Life is just a fancy dress up party and we players with a small part, [[here]] to restore a rubbish pile and persuade you that it is…

Unfolding

I saw the whole line before coming [[here]] to [[write]] this, sitting quietly at a fire waiting for the [[moon]] , when you looked…

Khafi

[[Here]] is the soft [[song]] of those far forests you walked last [[night]] , harmony heard in the deep ear where no hunter has ever…

Right Away

You and I, sweet [[love]] , have lost it all, sat quietly by a desert fire to watch the spirits of our seven worlds dance this mighty…

Breaking Day

To [[be]] with the meaning of sunrise, simply, until the very source of what it is to hasten to this far horizon as it sinks into gold is…

Sky Letters

The sky will read you the [[secret]] start to every surah if you stop and rest [[here]] , seeker. No need for anything but to see it…

Real Dream

[[Burn]] ing day: set a [[light]] by how we danced last [[night]] , feeling you right [[here]] , held against me while we moved as one…

Holy See

[[Here]] I sit, watching the sea, hungry and fearful and utterly fulfilled. I have felt brightness bounce [[be]] tween us as it [[burn…

Secret Garden II

A pair of [[white]] wings wafts by as you tell me to look into the [[eye]] of the Be [[love]] d, and the palm leaves waltz lazily in…

Servate Fidem

Life goes on forever, whether you ack [[now]] ledge it or not. It's love we're [[here]] to service: one purring [[heart]] stripped down…

Deviant

I'm so sorry I left you waiting all these many years, womb-friend, while I went off in search of the sun's true trajectory and the sum of…

Signed

To program poetry with people as the signs that stream meaning through the collective mind requires that I am the most abject one. It's…

Sar-e-sang

"Day And I gathered fragments of blue dense" - Joseph Cornell Sometimes, there [[will]] [[be]] sorrow, but then you'll stand again, as…

The Dot

Walk through the [[light]] tunnel which is the whole extended history of space [[time]] , a literal looking back into the distant past…

Floating Tales

A butterfly just butted in and is being quite belligerent. I must begin to [[write]] , though what it is I cannot say, opening the…

Transcension

"The importance of the moment is most important in the moment." - Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri It's still [[here]] , a glossy [[sea]] like…

Traces

The Blue Book includes an explanation of why "traces" matter in literary terms, citing Jacques Derrida and his seminal essay, "Signature…

Other Voice

"The colour of Allah is upon us! And what better dye than that of Allah. It is Him we worship." 2:138 "The colour of my [[love]] is deep…

Boyhood

Everything has its way, a great, unmissable [[way]] and we walkers of the wilderness within without which we won't survive, [[here]] to do…

Crossing Bare

Well, dear friends, the captain's now a gardener who watches carefully the weeds of his words and all the little whispers, while the others…

Sibghatallah

Two trees guard either end of the path: massive milkwoods who greet me every morning on my way [[through]] the forest, singing salaam…

Free Will

Here is the perfect prison, made entirely by [[moon]] [[light]] moving [[through]] the wooden bars of my balcony as the baritone ocean…


Explore the full YouTube playlist or The Blue Book playlist or the Living playlist. You can also @ me on Twitter with any questions.