Cognizance

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

began 11/29, not long before the Sunflower

some way, some how, I’ve fallen short of You,

even if I stacked all my deeds

like chips upon a table,

I’d lose the bet of worthy being,

for if I am

alone

I can never be enough or able.

In every thing I attempt,

in all that I intend,

I see my -comings ever shorter-,

the end of a stick

so frail,

it’d snap in two

at the lightest wind.

can’t help but think or feel our distance grows

the slave from his Master,

do I realize further the chasm

with things You bring me to know?

Oh Rabb, how can I nearness seek,

when I am the puddle’s fish

with out its school

unaware of sustenance,

floundering about,

in my own cage,

barely beast,

that finds for itself but doom as stage?

If You shelter me not,

if You do not forgive,

if You do not encompass me always,

I will be as dust

though human You have me made.

I beg, being one of those most needful begging,

for without You I’ve always been

simply nothing.

Your care, is my sanctuary,

Your pardon, my relief,

Your acceptance,

changes into Hope

all my pangs of grief.

If You erase not my sins

they would swallow my soul,

as drops of ink

lost amidst a darkness, deeper
than the blackest hole.

But for Your favor shown,
I could have no aims,
and would but stand alone,
but with my submission,
my surrender,
of my most precious pieces,
at last
breath is easier to breathe.   

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

my Gift: why do you not speak? what puzzles must I unlock, what language must I learn, to know what swims inside your soul, what hides behind the surface underneath? how I long to shower you in love, soak you with affection, so we might see how high you grow, and find your most potential. waiters wait, either on tables or for Fate, that they might find their sought, worthy of all the chase.

~

my Muse: from a distance, my beacon shaded from the peeking light of trees, surrounded by the forest and its green, tropical or temperate, or some shade in between, I wonder what surprises, caught in the corner of her eyes, while still she held her iris, a captured frame, a piercing gaze, a smile or a grimace it's hard to say, but with her as centerpiece, I find the portrait perfect and complete. 

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

i've already given, it's already been taken, an oath from me to Him, to keep on trying, regardless how i see a thing unfolding. just recently, one piece of me sought to protect another piece, and i don't think i could have felt more contented, there was khair forming in the road ahead, and it was beautiful. 

today, there's no cause for alarm, but i am reminded the other piece of me is far away, and on occasion there will be times where the closeness i seek will be a thing she cannot give, a thing i cannot have.

and so? so nothing. i submit, as often as He would have of me, to not rebel against a condition of my surrounding, to not be swept away in the absence of what the heart wants, to not forsake the road He gave me because of my own inability and incompletion.

Tomorrow is as much sabr as it is action, as much contentment with decree as it is forging something better, in ways that I still do not fully grasp, but inshaAllah will always be trying to find.

 

 

Unspoke

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

of today

though not a word we spoke, nor was I sure it was me you sought, still conversations flowed in my mind, like the breeze through a sunflower in its pot. I think we said our hello’s, I think our hair (yes me too! In my dreams at least) was blowing in the wind, we both forward gazed, towards a future we were in, but longed to sooner meet, I knew it as the sum of our todays. 

I wondered if that was your foot which from the picture’s corner poked, how sweet were that it so, just another part of you for me to one day tickle and touch, merry made mine to watch your laughter’s bubbly rush. If that your foot was not, alas, to see yours I will wait, perhaps you may call me mad, oft have others done the same, though in chasing you for life, not a thing would I dare change. 

who else, but you, my Muse, could spark from my dimmest moments, such welcome thoughts and truth, alive and whole again, lasting hope that wakes me from zombie into human?

I cannot forget, He Who let me have this gift, knowing you, my star that i will always chase, through these nights and days, past the seconds and weeks, alongside every other joy i may come to meet, there will be its twin in your complexion, twined in my soul, awaiting its own blossom and ascension, iA.

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

So this is how it is, being immune to emotion or pain, like a zombie given life, limbs strong as paper mache. Can't quite tell the trigger or cause, perhaps a natural progression, can wish or want for nothing, as if all of my being is simply paused. death might be simpler or sweeter, but can't ask for it either, so forward is the march, of one sightless, mindless, heartless, one without an end or a start. energy seeping out of my veins and pores, breathing an effort, existing a chore, just trying to finish this sentence, can't really be sure, where is the rest of me, the best of me, to bring meaning to what it's all for? 

 

12 / 12

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

so it was, on this day years ago, my Gift was born, one which I'd unwrap at last, to find inside it hiding my Tomorrow. i've spoken of the contradictions, of the factors juxtaposed, too often human sight is so limited, caught within a moment and its throes. i mind none of the trials that have passed, would not begrudge a single one that lies ahead, for they all remind me of what i chase, those things that last, where finding them is but patience and its wait. i don't think she sees what i do, perhaps most do not, the layers underneath the obvious, wherein hiding in not-quite-plain-sight is truth. i can not rush a single stage, this journey of a lifetime in everything it takes, simply to relish the hopes ahead, preparing for them by planting any good He lets me embrace. 

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

of corollaries and addendums, seems like most everything I write, just one long sentence, trying to finish its beginning and ending, space the periods and commas, hope what comes out, isn't quite senseless. messages and memories, packaged for hand delivery, either express or slightly slower inevitability. my Future is the fuse, a spark of kindling surrounding all that I do, pointing me forward, along this path that He ensures, is the only one for me to choose.  of trampolines and dreams, there, there inside the crux of these, is where we find the fuel for flight, to reach beyond the moments passing, with hearts as Beacon one and bright.

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

Once, there was a man who awoke feeling like he'd been crowned a king. He could not tell how long he had slept, or what had transpired outside of his bed, but for some reason he couldn't quite articulate, none of that mattered to him. For he recalled his sleep, the most restful he had ever had, incomparably comfortable and leaving him eager to be now awake.

There was much in front of his eyes he could not wrap his mind around, much beyond his scope, but he could feel someone waiting for him, not far from where he stood. He could not see her yet, had not met her eyes, but he knew, she was who he'd always chased. In the time before sleep, he had sought  her hand but found it to be a thing postponed. With that simple bend of fate, the man's destiny altered, as after that point, he would shape his existence as a fletcher crafts an arrow, for the sole purpose of finding himself where he now stood. 

It was not just that he would find her, or even that he would hold her, but what truly pulled him was the prospect of what he could show her. His time before sleep, it held no sway over him, but the time of this reckoning, it was everything for him, it was why he lived and why he sought. At last, their gaze crossed paths as she turned his way, and upon each other their sight fell. There she was, a queen in her own right, gloriously radiant, smiling a smile worthy of her lips, eyes wide and sparkling, reflecting all the company near to us.

If the man could have lived a thousand of his former lives, just so that he might revisit this moment anew, he would have. Would that his words could capture her visage, describe the resonance inside his chest, the matchless emotion of Triumph that coursed through their veins...but words could not. 

He knew, and so that was why he had chased this Reality for so long, to complete the task that all his words could only ever begin; their completion, at the doorstep of Eternity.

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

there come those days where I'd choose the storm and instead I am chosen by the stillness, perhaps the more I've given up to Him, the less there is for me to carry, less for me to feel. being away from my beloved used to be so much worse, now it's simply a passing shudder, gone nearly in the blink of an eye. in theory, my most painful moments should be these (#wcs), but He's taken the pain from me. I don't know what occupies in its place, what this feeling is, if it in fact is an emotion at all. 

a thought occurred to me the other day, that of turning to Allah becoming just like breathing to me: easy and simple and essential and second-nature and vital to survival. it did not quite get formed like a dua, but I suppose that is what it became. 

I am sorry, oh love of mine, that I cannot feel, that I cannot give, that through this life yet we must live. if choice were mine, I'd bring dawn to your sky, turn water into wine, let words formulate wings, so we'd always be in flight. for now, for this second, while we're captured by life and its essence, those choices are on hold but never forgotten, for my memory will serve as template, for those palaces and Gardens we've yet to walk in. this dream is His to carry, mine to chase, forward by day one step, perhaps closer to it we've came. - iA