sole fear is for the DayWhen heart and vision wake
In a new world
Where God rewards their deeds
Giving ever more from His Grace
For God furnishes measurelessly
Those whom He will.
– Holy Qur’an XXIV: 35-38.
Alif. Lam. Ra. These are the
Letters that will not yield. They
Stand like before and after,
The unremitting, unreturning
Face of time. Inscribed in
Uncomprehending hearts,
Unyielding faces, they are
The traces of eternity, returning
To language, overshadowing
Viewpoint and perspective
With higher harmony, notes
From sacred spheres, intoning
Veiled letters, trailing an
Invisible journey, trace
Of Otherness, whose sign
We read but cannot know.
Symbols, stood in the still light;
Will not be understood
As words, signs for
Things. Their wisdom shapes
The sounds they fill
From a deeper source than shrill
Persuasion. They call to deeds but
Also to silence, whose depth reaches
Beneath recitation
Through long centuries,
Exegesis, back to the voice of
Man, treading desert sand,
Listening to voices higher than all the
Words within, around his world.
These symbols call to all the
Forces of reading: book more
Than book, whose signs
Are more than words, opening into
Worlds of self, struggle, silhouetted
Against fading of night, opening
Into red of distance;
Their voices flow, in meaning
Shivering through many realms,
Past and future,
Whose movement cannot
Be stilled; voices whose life
Might not be stifled, in schools,
Be killed in codes and ghosts of
Rules, of literal reading:
Symbols, whose sounds
Are more than meaning.
Without Your Word in my heart,
I am not me; Your Word on my lips
Is not enough; it can be smudged off
By the world’s kiss, alluring in softness
Of speech. Your Word in my mind,
In depths of understanding is
What creates me again, anew,
Moulds me from within, as Spirit
Shapes Form. Let me be Your
Slave, not in letter only but in soul,
In knowing. Let its flame
Burn deep within to quench all other flames,
Let its tip of brilliance be my word
Flickering at the edge of Your Word,
Blazing at the core of my heart.
For years, the darkness has draped me,
Enshrouded in the high mantle of night.
Darkness of idols, worship of Mammon,
Abuse of orphans, widows, women.
Here, from the mountain, I see a darkness
Enfolding the world. Yet now
Another darkness descends on me,
A beating of wings, shuddering,
Beating in my own breath, heart, soul:
Shadows everywhere, all shadow.
What moment is this, opening into
The very soul of time, what mode of time
Unfolding breath of
Eternity. God. Worlds above, worlds
Upon worlds. What weight of universe
Descends, spreading through me,
Breathing through my lips
A voice from so high yet so deep within
Shuddering in Angel breath: O vision
At the edge of vision, wherever I turn
My dark horizon is lit with form of Angel,
Forcing me, wherever I turn, he stands,
Blinding, colossal, power of light:
Archangel.
All
