Almost noon...

Although I do not vouch for
The darkness in the room,
I do understand it,
The way it withdraws
When confronted.
Yet, the true affinity is
With the light,
Its pervaisivness,
Its strength.
Do not leave me
Oh Light!
But instead illuminate
My way and save me
From this darkness
That is always threatening
To consume.

Time for a change...

It seems as if I'm migrating somewhere else. Maybe you'll see me back here. Maybe you won't.

Is it seriously less than one week away? :)

Remember folks: You never know what's in your qadr.

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajiun

Giving up Sins: An Easy Prescription
by Hazrat Maulana Yunus Patel Saheb (daamat barakaatuhum)

…Death visits – more often, very unexpectedly, and no true Muslim would want to be seized by the Angel of death when Allah Ta’ala is displeased. I often say : We now have instant tea, and instant coffee, and instant cereal and instant pudding and so many other things on the market are instant – we are also living in times when death is just as instant. So any sin is too much of a risk in the face of the reality of death. …The Hadith is explicit : That we will be resurrected on the day of Judgement as we have died and we will die as we have lived. …Would any Muslim want to rise up on the Day of Judgement in sin, for all of mankind to witness what kind of life he led?

Dear old students.

Dear my old students from other schools,

I'm sorry that I don't remember your name, where I know you from, or anything particular about you. My memory is really that bad. But it's not all my fault. You've grown a lot as well. But really it mostly boils down to my memory. I'm lucky if I remember my name sometimes. I'll leave you with a poem by Billy Collins. Although I haven't had that many students as of yet (this will be my fourth year of teaching), it does resonate with me.

“Schoolsville”
from Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins

Glancing over my shoulder at the past,
I realize the number of students I have taught
is enough to populate a small town.

I can see it nestled in a paper landscape,
chalk dust flurrying down in winter,
nights dark as a blackboard.

The population ages but never graduates.
On hot afternoons they sweat the final in the park
and when it’s cold they shiver around stoves
reading disorganized essays out loud.
A bell rings on the hour and everybody zigzags
into the streets with their books.

I forgot all their last names first and their
first names last in alphabetical order.
But the boy who always had his hand up
is an alderman and owns the haberdashery.
The girl who signed her papers in lipstick
leans against the drugstore, smoking,
brushing her hair like a machine.

Their grades are sewn into their clothes
like references to Hawthorne.
The A’s stroll along with other A’s.
The D’s honk whenever they pass another D.

All the creative-writing students recline
on the courthouse lawn and play the lute.
Wherever they go, they form a big circle.

Needless to say, I am the mayor.
I live in the white colonial at Maple and Main.
I rarely leave the house. The car deflates
in the driveway. Vines twirl around the porch swing.

Once in a while a student knocks on the door
with a term paper fifteen years late
or a question about Yeats or double-spacing.
And sometimes one will appear in a windowpane
to watch me lecturing the wallpaper,
quizzing the chandelier, reprimanding the air.

I am also what surrounds you:

Backdrop addresses cowboy

By Margaret Atwood

Starspangled cowboy

sauntering out of the almost-

silly West, on your face

a porcelain grin,

tugging a papier-mâché cactus

on wheels behind you with a string,

you are innocent as a bathtub

full of bullets.

Your righteous eyes, your laconic

trigger-fingers

people the streets with villains:

as you move, the air in front of you

blossoms with targets

and you leave behind you a heroic

trail of desolation:

beer bottles

slaughtered by the side

of the road, bird-

skulls bleaching in the sunset.

I ought to be watching

from behind a cliff or a cardboard storefront

when the shooting starts, hands clasped

in admiration,

but I am elsewhere.

Then what about me

what about the I

confronting you on that border,

you are always trying to cross?

I am the horizon

you ride towards, the thing you can never lasso

I am also what surrounds you:

my brain

scattered with your

tincans, bones, empty shells,

the litter of your invasions.

I am the space you desecrate

as you pass through.

Blessing of Allah

Alhamdulillah for having a horrible memory.

One of these...

Nightclub

by Billy Collins

You are so beautiful and I am a fool
to be in love with you
is a theme that keeps coming up
in songs and poems.
There seems to be no room for variation.
I have never heard anyone sing
I am so beautiful
and you are a fool to be in love with me,
even though this notion has surely
crossed the minds of women and men alike.
You are so beautiful, too bad you are a fool
is another one you don't hear.
Or, you are a fool to consider me beautiful.
That one you will never hear, guaranteed.
For no particular reason this afternoon
I am listening to Johnny Hartman
whose dark voice can curl around
the concepts on love, beauty, and foolishness
like no one else's can.
It feels like smoke curling up from a cigarette
someone left burning on a baby grand piano
around three o'clock in the morning;
smoke that billows up into the bright lights
while out there in the darkness
some of the beautiful fools have gathered
around little tables to listen,
some with their eyes closed,
others leaning forward into the music
as if it were holding them up,
or twirling the loose ice in a glass,
slipping by degrees into a rhythmic dream.
Yes, there is all this foolish beauty,
borne beyond midnight,
that has no desire to go home,
especially now when everyone in the room
is watching the large man with the tenor sax
that hangs from his neck like a golden fish.
He moves forward to the edge of the stage
and hands the instrument down to me
and nods that I should play.
So I put the mouthpiece to my lips
and blow into it with all my living breath.
We are all so foolish,
my long bebop solo begins by saying,
so damn foolish
we have become beautiful without even knowing it.

I like to go to bookstores and wander the poetry section. Often, I will grab a random book of poetry hoping to find a gem. I hit the jackpot with Boris Novak's poetry, especially in this poem which could be dedicated to that special someone.

Borders

We gaze at the same full moon... horizons

far away, too far from each other. Mountains

rise between us. A soft, mossy crust

grows over our footsteps. All alone

you crossed all borders and came to a foreign country,

to the homeland of my arms. Dangerously alone

I crawl past the keepers of borders: I travel to the

Northwest, where I am bitterly ashamed

of the screeching of the soul among smooth, horrible walls.

I stand before them, a dark man from the Southeast,

with a conspicuous name, shuddering, as naked as prey.

I cannot escape. Border is destiny.

Now you know: although you cross the border, you don't erase it.

Rising even higher it will measure your steps, like doubt.

A map is not an illusion. So speak more softly.

Beyond all borders your lips are my home.

-Boris Novak

The Ultimate Pick Up Poem

Love’s Philosophy

Percy Bysshe Shelley

The fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean;
The winds of heaven mix forever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In another’s being mingle–
Why not I with thine?

See, the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister flower could be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea;–
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?

Poetry Challenge 2

This time my class was working on a chain poem. More information on this activity can be found here. It is basically an exercise in free association and feeds into poetry.

You start with one object in the room. In our case, we started with "light." You then write the first thing that comes to your mind, which was "bright." Then you write the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of "bright" and so forth until you have 6-8 items. Our list was as follows:

Light
Bright
Flashes
Fast
Car
Wheels
Rims

You then add words to each side to make it into a poem. This is what I came up with.

Chain Poem #1

The light blinds when the
Bright thoughts enter
Flashes of contemplation
Destroying the fast energies of the world
A car is man made
And he created wheels
The rims a mere decor

Poetry Challenge

For one of my classes, I tore up scraps of paper and had students write topics on the paper. They then had to randomly choose a paper and write about the topic they chose in three stanzas with a set rhyme scheme. The students challenged me: You have to write one as well. So I did.

Nature

The soft rain falling
On the hot concrete
Steam rising
Making the scene complete

Soft tears fall
Mirroring the rain
My hopes are tall
How can I complain

When my soul is pure
and untainted by sin
Temptations lure
But I will win

Qabiltu

Qabiltu
by Abu Zayd USA
It began with a simple statement, qabiltu Your hand in mind, we left to start our new lives. The sun never shined as bright And the moon was never so full as it became when your life and mine became one. We never met, We never spoke, but we there was a feeling that my faulty tongue can never express in its own words - muwaddah. The stars spoke to us that night bringing life to the dark Earth bring life to your dark hearts and stand. Water splashed on my face the night we were wed, urging me to stand before the One who blessed us with one another, an answer to the implicit call of His creation, and the explicit call of His Majesty. Greetings of peace and love showered our home, glad tidings of the clock's hand approaching Maghrib, breaking the fast you asked me to join you in. For you it was never nafsi nafsi You taught me what it meant to love Him, though you may not know it. It was because of my love for you I realized how much I didn't Love Him. My life was incomplete without You My life will never be complete without Him. Qabiltu my heart connected with you Qabiltu when will my heart connect with Him ---------------------------------------- From Islamicpoetry.org

Allah

A few years ago, I traveled with some fellow classmates and our teacher to Gatlinburg, TN. We decided to go on one hike to the highest point in the Smoky Mountains called Clingman's Dome. Unfortuantely, we started off in exactly the wrong direction and began heading towards another very high point at the top of Mount Leconte.

Because I had planned out the hike, the distance, and the time it would take us, I was not worried that we got started a bit late at around 11am since we had plenty of time to finish this hike and return well before dark. However, since we were going the wrong direction, all of the calculations were off.

We reached the top of Mount Leconte around 6pm, prayed 'asr, and began heading back down. When we reached a small stream (the only source of water on the trail), it was already getting dark. This was only about one quarter of the way down. We made wudu' the stream and then hiked on a little ways until we found a flat place to pray maghrib.

By this time it was quite dark. We were in the middle of the mountains of Tennessee with only two flashlights and no signs of life around. The stars were bright and abundant. Our teacher began to lead us in maghrib. After Surah al-Fatihah, he read:

الله نور السماوات والارض
Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth (24:35).

and stopped. He paused for a long time (much longer than is permissible in salah), but we knew why he was pausing. We all began to cry deeply as these verses which talk about the Light of Allah gained new depth for us. Eventually he moved on to a different surah, but this memory sticks in my mind and forces me to read this portion from Surah al-Nur whenever I'm under the bright night sky.

Via PostSecret

The candle is not there to illuminate itself.

...and then I wept too.

Shukumar stood up and stacked his plate on top of hers. He carried the plates to the sink, but instead of running the tap he looked out the window. Outside the evening was still warm, and the Bradfords were walking arm in arm. As he watched the couple the room went dark, and he spun around. Shoba had turned the lights off. She came back to the table and sat down, and after a moment Shukumar joined her. They wept together, for the things they now knew.

- Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

From bad to good

I had a really bad day yesterday. A student was yelling at me and telling me what a horrible teacher I am. That was the way the school day ended. I was miserable. Then suddenly a verse came into my head that I had heard in the morning on the way to school.

ما أغنى عني ماليه

Allah ta'ala said in Surah al-Haqqah that a person's wealth will not make him rich. I asked a colleague to make sure the meaning was right because it didn't seem to make sense. What does wealth do? By definition it makes someone rich. But that is in this life. On the Day of Judgement wealth will do nothing for a person unless he used it in the path of Allah.

We see this theme coming in hadith as well when the Prophet (sallahu 'alayhi wa sallam) said his companions who the bankrupt one is. They responded that it is the one who has no money. He then taught them that it is the person who had prayed and fasted he wronged other people. Then those people whom he wronged will come and take all of his good deeds until he is flung into the Hellfire.

This helped me and lifted my mood. SubhanAllah. The words of Allah are so deep.

je ne sais pas choisir

Quand je veux mourrir le mercredi matin
Je me dis ça peut attendre jeudi matin
Quand je me réveille le matin du jeudi
J' me dis j'aurais du mourrir mercredi!

Le Petit Prince

Voici mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.

A GOOD-TALKING CANDLE

I had a good-talking candle
last night in my bedroom.

I was very tired but I wanted
somebody to be with me,
so I lit a candle

and listened to its comfortable
voice of light until I was asleep.

-Richard Brautigan

you who were born with the sun above your shoulders

All the sights of paris
Pale inside your iris