first came a strong wind,

ripping off rooftops like bottlecaps

and bending lampposts down to the ground

then came a thunder shattering my windows

but you were not that strong wind or that might sound

that left the barn in shambles, the rabbit hutch in ruins

the split-rail fence splintered and the curtains torn,

all the cows out from the pastures trampling on the pumpkins

and the horses from their stables ambling in the corn

Isa ruhu-lah 'alaihis-salat was-salam

I've flown unnoticed just behind you like an insect

and I've watched you like a falcon from a distance as you passed

then swooped down to be nearer to the traces of your footsteps

to pick the fallen grain from the dirt beneath the crooked grass

and I'm gonna take that grain and I'm gonna crush it all together

into the flour of a bread as small and simple and sincere

as when the dryness and the rain finally drink from one another

the gentle cup of mutual surrender tears

A fish swims through the sea,

while the sea is in a certain sense

contained within the fish!

Ah, what am I to think

of what the writing of a thousand lifetimes

could not explain

if all the forest trees were pens

and all the oceans ink?

nastagh-firuka ya Hokan

ya Dhal-Jalah wal-Ikram

Isa ruhu-lah 'alaihis-salat was-salam

ya Halim, ya Qahhar

ya Muntaqim, ya Ghaffar!

la Ilaha ilallahu, Allahu Akbar!