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 # 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

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

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.

Wandering Thought # 241

‏الحبّ هو أن تجد شيئاً جميلاً في الذي تُحبهُ كلّ يوم.

Every lived life rises on the foundation of an unlived, imagined life that could’ve been but never did.

The idols are big in proportion to the smallness of the faith.

Science can purge God from the human imagination the day it can vanquish poetry.

It is our spiritual vacuum that we attempt to fill with pleasure, without succeeding.

Solitude is the virtue of the strong.

The moth does not give up until it is burned.

You can win every very battle but still lose the war.

There is no suffering that cannot be surmounted by death; there is no death that cannot be vanquished by love.

بعضُ الأشخاص بلسمٌ للروح.

Haiku # 722

Autumn begins…
lying in the grass I guess
the shape of the clouds

لوجودها في حياتي
رائحة الأرض العطشى
بعد مطر الخريف

للذكريات حفيف
أنصت إليها وأنا أتأمّل
تساقط أوراق الخريف

You speak my heart better
than all their words…
moon in the sky

Looking at her hurts…
so much love
I can not speak

First days of autumn…
writing poetry
to the light of the moon

My heart melts
with infinite softness
as I look at you

Though apart
between us a thread
weaved by the moon

Autumn begins
and my heart wanders
in dreams of endless white

Summer evening
what the stars whisper
I hear in my heart

‏هذا الشعر
ضوءُ شمعةٍ بهِ أتلمَّس
تفاصيلَ وجهكِ

Wandering Thought # 240

The self is not an isolated atom; it is only a self in relation to others and to the world; it is not a state, an identity, but a locus of interdependent experiences where the external commingles with the internal, a process in which both are modified. It is modern madness to confuse self with personhood. For it spells our isolation from other people as well as the world, cutting us off from life and its flow. The psyche is not merely individual, but the individual is an expression of it, which makes the psyche communal, .incorporating even nature and the inanimate. Therefore our modern psychological diseases are not problems occurring only within us, but we are the site in which what is ill in society and our way of life expresses itself.

To the modern madness we must oppose: myth and poetry.

Kissing Her Neck

Like fresh morning dew
my kisses sink into her neck,
from her chin down
to the hollow above her chest,
going around to her collarbones,
then to her nape at the back
as I lift her dark hair,
falling slowly to the expanse
between her shoulder blades…

…my kisses circle her neck
like a Sufi turns
ecstatic and feverish,
lost in prayer
as with each turn
he falls deeper
lost in God.

Wandering Thought # 139

You will feel happy to work less only if you feel that your work is imposed on you, that it is a bane. But in a world where work is a source of joy, where it is beneficial for yourself and the community, it is nonsensical to work less or more, for work, then, is an expression of your being, and is at one with life, it is a passion. As it now stands, we suffer work as an affliction, and as something that separates us from life and from true community. We are ridden with feelings of guilt if we do not perform and submit to the norms, and to perform we feel that we need to sacrifice ourselves, burning ourselves on the altar of the work-god.

Haiku # 721

‏قصيدةٌ غيرُ مُنتَهية…
مرتجِفاً كورقة خريف
سأتركُ هذا العالم

‏حرُّ الصيف
لا يدفئ عظامي
التي تتوقُ اليكِ

This life is a dream…
opening our eyes
the fog dissipates
into an endless white

‏الحياةُ حلم
نفتح عينينا ليتبدد الضباب
على نورٍ لامتناهي

‏هذهِ الكلمات
قصيدةٌ صداها
يعودُ إليَّ فقط

Haiku # 720

‏القمرُ في النافذة
ضوءهُ يُعيدُني
إلى بيتِ الطفولة

À l’abri du monde
mon cœur est un bourgeon
sa fleur un poème

‏من نافذةِ المكتب
أُراقبُ عصافير الحقل
كم هي حرّة وسعيدة‏

‏المعبدِ القديم
أحجارهُ أزهارَ لوزٍ
تناثرت في الريح

‏وحيداً عند المساء
منصتاً للصمت
الذي يلفُّ أيامي

‏صمتُ الظهيرة
أستمعُ لزيزِ الصيف
وأنتظٍرُ الخريف

‏حرٌّ لاهب
أُحاول أن أقرأ
وأنا أمسح عرقي

‏‏في صومعتي
أقرأ وأكتب
منتظراً ظهور القمر

‏الأيامُ التي مرّت
وتساقطت كأوراق الخريف
ما زالت تلمعُ أحياناً
تحتَ ضوءِ القمر

‏قلبيَ الضائع
عصفورٌ أرسلتهُ
إليكِ

مهما فعلت بك الحياة
لا تهمل قلبكَ
وتنسى أنكَ شاعر

‎

Wandering Thought # 138

The more parts of yourself you can bring into your relationship the more you will be able to feel that you can be open, love and commit, and the less you will feel that the excluded parts of yourself need to be searched for somewhere outside.

Haiku # 719

‏سبعُ سنينٍ يا أُختي
ما زِلتُ أبكي كلما
رأَيتُكِ في حُلُمي

‏حُبُْها في قلبي
برعمٍ أبيض نضِر
مكسوٍ بحبيبات الندى

‏قصيدة الهايكو
وحدها تنصت
إلى سكونِ روحي

‏خفيفٌ كالغيم مرورَكِ
لكنَّهُ يجعَلَني أَحلُم
بما وراءَ الجبال