Haiku# 728

Ma vie de poète…
l’errance d’une feuille
portée par le vent

My poet-life…
awandering leaf
blown by the wind

حياة الشاعر
ليست إلا ورقة
تتقاذفها الريح

Haiku # 727

Travelling through the woods
to find me in my bed…
birdsong at dawn

Tanka# 216

As I touch you
a silence enters my heart
and I become still
like a garden
in the light of dawn

Wandering Thought # 347

Consumerism isn’t just a market model, it’s also a human model. We consume other people and relationships the same way we consume commodities for no other reason than boredom and the artificial need for something new.

In this way, our relating to others and, indeed, to ourselves, takes on a shallow dimension and never hits or strives for depth. We crave that which thrills and titillates us, but only momentarily, and do not know of the pleasures that patience, time and discipline can give.

We have modeled our relationship with the world, with others, and with ourselves after the consumerist ideal, and in the process have lost peace and deep relatedness. We are agitated, constantly driven to change people the way we buy new clothes.

We are consumers, but in the process it is we who are consumed; it is we who are no more than an empty shell, filled with nothing more than the sound of the waves, an echo and no substance, a shadow of an agitated flame.

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I Write to You

I write to you
the way a bird
feels the wind
gliding under his wings,
the way the fire crackles
with passionate heat
to consume ever wildly,
the way a root
with infinite patience
descends into the dark;
I write to you
the way the rain
kisses the earth
after a long summer,
the way a monk
prays to God
in the solitude of his cell;
I write to you the way
wine ferments in darkness
and wheat grows gold
in the summer sun,
the way dawn fills the heart
with the still clarity of its light.
I write to you because I love you
and you have turned my life
into a journey of love.

Writing as Worship

I spill my soul
into the poem
and it takes the shape
of her body,
shines with the light
of her face.

My poem is a journey
winding amid the white hills
of her grace.

I write as if to glimpse
beyond the veil that hides
her endless mystery.

I write because writing
is a form of worship.

Haiku # 726

Clouds and wind…
immersed in the breath
of this great earth

I often feel that the winds and clouds are the breath of the earth, that we are all engulfed in a single breath, sustaining us, keeping us alive, shrouding us in its great, endless mystery.

The Ultimate Gift

In a city of constant noise
you were the silent beauty
which presence lifted me
into a higher realm of harmony,
who opened up higher worlds for me,
filled me up with passion
and gave me the ultimate gift,
the kiss of poetry.

Wandering Thought # 246

Myth is not dead if we still feel in our hearts something of the magic of a year that ends and one that begins, of a cycle returning, beginning again, filled with the power of renewal. This eternal recurrence is the essence of the most ancient myths; that the world has been ordained by divinity to return again and again as an emulation of the divine, and this to eternity.

Haiku # 725

From their treetops
the crows already see
the coming year

Last day of the year…
amid the bare trees I walk
on my solitary way

My lonely path
into the new year wanders
between bare trees

This, my life,
I animate with my heart
and live as poetry…

New year
old resolutions
this life of poetry

Wandering Thought # 245

Our character and social interactions, the way we deal with ourselves and with others, are built on the darker foundations of our addictions and how we come to terms with them, whether we are able to control our desires and emotions or are controlled by them.

Haiku # 724

تمُرُّ بجانبي
أحبُسُ أنفاسي لأتَنَشقْ
رائحةَ عُطرِها

Clear winter night
the silent stars fill
my heart with wonder

In the puddle at my feet
rippling
the winter moon

Cold winter night
under the moonlight
two lovers holding hands

Wandering Thought # 244

A thinker is one who rides his solitude on lofty wings that take him up over and beyond mountains and cities, giving him eyes to see things those who dwell in society never dream of seeing. For that reason, when he speaks no one understands him, and when he comes back to society he must use the mask to be intelligible. If is both a curse and a blessing to go through the world in such a way, unseen, hidden.

The hyper sensitive will feel guilty for things they did not even do, they are always ripe for submission.

We can never be rid of the mystical impulse because science can never exhaust the mystery of life.

Without love even beauty becomes tiring and ultimately a burden.

This solitude, I cultivated it all my life so that it could, one day, be large enough to contain your presence.

Solitude, my sole companion, the only candle lighting the corners of my heart.

Poetry is the translation of the heat between our bodies, the gravity that pulls even stars from their orbit.

‏لا شعر يوفيها حقها فلغزها أعمق من كل شعر.

صوفيُّ القلبِ والهوى.

The Poet’s Life

A poet lives a lonely life
that he may shape birds
out of his own heart
that he sends flying
into the deepest forests
and over the highest mountains
to enliven the mist of the world
with the warmth of his song

Tanka # 215

This poetry
I gather it inside of me
like a promise,
and each time I utter it
it says your name.

Haiku # 723

Through the leafless branches
peeking as I walk
the winter moon

Things Invisible

There are things invisible
whose presence is known only
by the way they affect others
such as the wind passing through
or kindness for no reason given
or the way your beauty
makes light glow around your skin
or the way my love bends the world
in a hymn song for you

Wandering Thought # 243

I am a mystic through and through. Poetry was never for me an artistic endeavour but a spiritual one. It was my way to go beyond myself, into myself, and touch something of the Eternal that manifests itself through us and through every form that comes into existence, as the movement of existence itself. I am a mystic, a poet of the heart, I am one who listens.

This November

This November
I want to be a wild field
feeling into my bones
the surge of autumn,
surrendering and letting it all
fall down into the ground
to be cradled in darkness,
to know the meaning of long rest
and unperturbed sleep.

This November I want to go
deep down into my roots
to be acquainted again
with the nature of my being,
the stranger’s face, which is my face,
the face that I once loved
and must learn to love again.

This November I will let the summer wine
brew deep in my veins
with the warmth of its sun,
I will let my dreams
carry me over to the other plain
where spring arrives
with new wildflowers and fruits
and a renewed thirst for life
taking me to the edge of all that I am.

Wandering Thought # 242

A positive thinker is not one who believes in the positive outcome of every situation. Some situations are clearly hopeless, with the outcome bound to be negative.

A positive thinker is not dispirited by the negative event, but still affirms life and sees therein something to learn. He grasps that growth and understanding happen in difficult situations where one is challenged and even defeated.

A positive thinker understands that no defeat is final since life is deeper than all defeats and love is stronger even than death; and since life always finds a way, he puts the defeat to his advantage by learning from it and being reconciled to the nature of life.

A positive thinker does not believe that he will simply get what he wants by adopting a positive mindset, but understands that the important lessons happen when one’s desire is frustrated, and that failures offer the most important lessons and are the true shapers of character.

A positive thinker is one who believes in the transformative power of our attitude towards life. We are not the passive objects of outside events but we have the power to change them by changing ourselves. Our power lies in our response to what happens to us.