When I Said I Loved You

When I said I loved you,
(And I love you, my child)
Every word I uttered at
The moment you smiled,

Drifted high on a breeze
Over meadows and seas,
How it skipped through the sands,
How it swayed with the trees;

It struck every mountain
That stood in its way,
And warmed every fountain's
Affectionate spray;

And then it ascended
To float on a cloud
To flash with the lightning
And thunder aloud,

Then fall to the earth with
The generous rain
And unto a sapling
To constant remain,

The love on the wings of
A word ever knows
How to humor a thorn
And to blossom a rose;

It may be you'll smell such
A flower someday,
A fragrant reminder
Of words I did say;

Now if I have loved you
The way that I should,
And if I have not, then
I hope that I would,

That when I am judged for
The things I intend,
With none to support me
And none to defend,

That day, may the breeze and
The meadows and seas,
The sands and the mountains,
The fountains and trees,

The clouds and the thunder
And lightning and rain,
The sapling that rose in
Its fragrant domain:

All witness my love for
You placed in my trust.
Do love me the same, child,
For Allah, you must.

Love and Fresh Air

You can't see the air, but you know that it's there,
It stirs up the sand, and it blows through your hair,
It flushes your blood as you breathe everywhere,
You can't see the air, but you know that it's there;

You can't see a love, but you know of its bliss
That brings you a peace and it makes you to kiss,
Reminds you of times and of people you miss,
You can't see a love, but you know of its bliss;

You can't see your Lord for an eye cannot bear
What minds cannot measure though hearts may declare,
Like air ever trapped in a medium rare
And love ever blind to the sight of despair.

Upon Seeing a Drop of Water On My Windshield (Again)

Here is another pass at this work of free verse from over four years ago. 
http://www.khamuk.com/2009/03/upon-seeing-drop-of-water-on-my.html

Now in iambic pentameter.

I welcome you, my silent water drop
Upon my windshield as you form a lens,
I see a harvest of the heavens' crop
In you and all of your companions.

You strive upon the glass a moment longer
Where angel stewards broke your mighty fall,
Now tell me of a time when you felt stronger,
Of past descents you fancied most of all.

Were you among the drops that drowned the world
That turned away from Nūh, or were you one
That came upon his noble shoulder, hurled
By waves that came between him and his son?

Or did you to the locks of Yūnus cling
As in the deepest darknesses he cried
Until his tear-moistened lips would spring
A supplication honored far and wide.

Or could it be the cries of Isma'eel
Within the mounts his mother ran between
Preceded your ascent upon his heel?
Were you a part of that majestic scene?

Or when they hoisted Yūsuf from the well,
Were you his sympathizer in the pail?
I wish there were a way that I could tell
You more about the beauty of his tale.

Or did you splash upon the Red Sea shore
When Mūsa let his staff down with a call
That streaked a dozen pathways in the floor
And perched you high atop a liquid wall?

Now as you slither down my windshield, do
I wonder if you quenched the burning thirst
Of Talūt and his constant soldiers few
Preparing to defeat a foe accursed.

Or did you flow beside the blessed palm
That Maryam rested by and Isa on,
To babble with his baby sounds and calm
A virgin mother purer than the dawn?

Or might you be of drops that fell to Badr
That got to kiss the face of my Nabi,
If so, then know is yours a might qadr:
To touch the one my eyes so long to see.

Now as the traffic inches from this stop,
I let a prayer scape my lips compressed
In hopes our breaths will make it, little drop,
To where the blessed Messenger does rest.

Allahumma Salli 'ala Muhammad wa Baarik wa Sallim.

Believing is Seeing

An amazing account underscoring the rank of our mother Sayyidatuna Khadijah al-Kubra 'alayhisSalaam.

As related by Shaykh Mohammed Amin (Women in the Quran Lecture Series: April 12, 2013). May Allah protect and keep him.

The Prophet sat beside her as
Khadijah dried her eyes,
Was plain to him how torn she was
By Qasim's sad demise;

He held her hand consolingly
As tears flowed again
At how the babble of a child
Was now replaced by pain.

Khadijah talked of how she wished
She'd had the chance to nurse
Their son a little longer, and
That made it even worse.

And then Muhammad, peace be on
Him, looked into her face
And told her he could send a word
Constraining all of space

So she may hear the baby coo
In foster mother's care;
And angels lifted cosmic veils
In readiness to share

The voice of little Qasim for
His mother's grieving eyes;
But then our mother, peace be on
Her, was a woman wise;

She recognized the sanctity
Of all that is unseen;
Believing without seeing does
Enrich the sight serene.

And so contented, she declined
The opportunity,
But in her declination, find
A wisdom like the sea:

So vast and deep and free.

Pleas

Alternating anapestic tetrameter and trimeter

If your Lord loves a thing unto which you incline
In the hope that the Lord will be pleased,
Then His pleasure with you is a promise divine
With no part of it ever decreased.

But if He is displeased with a thing you adore,
And it grieves you that He is displeased,
It may please Him to see you get down on the floor
To take stock of a heart that's diseased.

With a heart that is flushed and abluted with tears,
Let the earth take your brow and your knees,
And when grief, like the dew in the sun, disappears,
Do get up and get on with it, please.

Follow

Based on the teachings of Shaykh Mohammed Amin, regarding true scholarship and its deep respect for the oral tradition.

You say you love the Messenger
Yet doubt the Word he brings;
To love you must believe from where
All adoration springs;

And then belief begets more love
In turn begets belief:
A wave that swells and rolls to shores
Eternal in relief.

Though words and books may well preserve
All matters of the brain,
And even touch a seeking heart,
The fact does still remain:

This love is borne by hearts that heard
And saw and touched him too,
Then passed it on through deed and word
To hearts that follow true.

How can you love and follow him
You've never known before
Unless you love and follow them
Who love him even more.

The path toward the Messenger
Is lined with lamps that burn
The oil from his prophetic tree;
So to this path return.

Reserve your intellect for but
Inevitable need:
To hold a candle to the sun
Is foolishness indeed.

So follow on, and follow well
This pure prophetic light,
For even does the Messenger,
In following, delight.

Mercy Sniffles

It's hard to see you cough and sneeze,
All curled up in a ball;
To toss and turn at every wheeze
Is just no good at all.

You miss your healthy self before
The coming of those germs,
But you know even germs must live
Their predetermined terms.

The cloud upon your face declares
The falling of a tear,
But hold your head up high for there's
A silver lining here;

It's true, the Messenger has said
The Lord is with the ill,
So come prepare the finest spread
To host Him and His will.

Begin with appetizer chants
Of His Majestic Name,
And line your plush repentance with
The cushions of your shame,

To pour into the goblet of
Your heart the Word of Light,
The more the pleasure of your guest
The more that you recite.

And then your guest will sup upon
Your supplication fine,
Choose every word with care as you
Beseech your Host Divine.

For everything you ask him for
Is granted you, or stored
For you to be united with
The day you meet your Lord.

Remember, child, that you are in
A state, supreme and pure;
So pray for much, but do begin
By asking for a cure.

Published in The Society of Classical Poets 2013 Annual Journal

Four of my five submissions were published in the 2013 Annual Journal of the Society of Classical Poets. The works included are:

Children of the Year
Jameel and Jameelah
On Cancer, Guns and Hit 'n Runs
The Ever Rising Tide

This is a real honor for me considering only forty poets were selected from over 600 participants, and the journal has about seventy-five poems in it. Very heartening for me and my work.

Thanks to Evan Mantyk for his consideration, and for his zeal in keeping the tradition of classical English poetry alive and thriving.

-KM

One-Dream Child

My son, he thinks he sees a dream
Each night, always the same,
It does not change, not ever; so
Is his sincere claim.

It starts out with a slowly growing
Darkness, vast and dense,
That swallows up his sight as well
As every other sense;

There is no place where he is at,
And no time he is in,
There is no company without
And not a soul within.

Then as it comes, does it recede,
This darkness, vast and dense,
And wakes him up to wonder
Where it goes, or came it whence.

He tells us of this dream he has
At breakfast every day,
Relating every detail in
A most fantastic way.

Someday he'll know his nightly dream
Is not a matter deep;
We just don't have the heart to tell
Him all it is is sleep

The Wednesday Song

I wrote this little song to help the girls cope with Mondays. The weekend seems too far away on a Monday. But Wednesday... now that's almost here. 

The middle of the week is here, the middle of the week,
There's something very special 'bout the middle of the week.

Your Monday morning blues fade into Tuesday morning skies,
By Wednesday, you're walking with the sunshine in your eyes;

Just like a spoon of lemon flavored cod liver oil
Goes down before it leaves the taste of lemon in your cheek.

The middle of the week is here, the middle of the week,
There's something very special 'bout the middle of the week.

Its true they say that Thursday and Friday can be fun,
But you know it gets busy when there's work that must be done;

You're happy for the weekend now, but have you heard the news:
You're headed for another case of Monday morning blues!

The middle of the week is here, the middle of the week,
There's something very special 'bout the middle of the week.

Your Monday morning blues fade into Tuesday morning skies,
By Wednesday, you're walking with the sunshine in your eyes.

Happily Ever After

When Baasha had done his hours of toil,
He walked from his shop through the dirt,
His hands bearing cuts from metal, and oil
Did streak down the sleeves of his shirt;

All traces of weakness fell from his face
To see by the door of his shack
His Rehmet in all her dignified grace
Just waiting for him to get back;

They shut out the twilight, bolted the door,
Then dined upon water and rice,
(The water in fact exceedingly more)
With salt as the singular spice;

Then Rehmet looked up at Baasha and drew
His blistery hands to her face,
To wash them in streams affectionate dew
That rolled down her cheeks in a race;

Ten thousand some miles away in the hour
When dawn is announced by a breeze,
There sitting beneath a clematis bower
Husna and her husband Aziz;

The question that Rehmet hid in her tears
And found not the words to advance,
Her sister in faith presented those fears
In much of the same circumstance;

If you were to die, and I to survive,
Or I were to die leaving you,
I worry the one remaining alive 
May not really know what to do.

Aziz said no words, but dried off her tears,
Did Baasha, to Rehmet, the same;
The darkest of nights eventually nears
The dawn in celestial game.

Your marriage is like a stake in the sand
That shifts with your every breath;
As long as you breathe, you must understand:
The thing that cements it is death;

He witnesses you as one, in His name,
As you bear the witnessing high,
Companions in life to always remain
Companions in life once you die.

Love, Returning

The recent talk by Shaykh Amin on the life of Lady Aasiyah brought me to compose this. And I write it now to celebrate the birth of my niece, Aasiyah Fatimah Mohajir. Congratulations to her parents and grandparents.

I welcome you, O Aasiyah
And wish for you all good
In faith and health and happiness,
As all, who love you, would.

But do you know, O Aasiyah,
The Aasiyah of old,
Who lived by gardens of delight
In palaces of gold.

Was married to a mighty king;
She raised a prince who fled
Into the wild, returning as
A Messenger instead.

And when she heard his message, she
Submitted with her all,
Yet carefully concealed it lest
The Messenger may fall;

But when her husband set to slay
The noble Messenger,
Her actions, all his burning wrath,
Diverted, as it were:

She showed her faith before the king
She loved with all her heart,
But all of love and mercy did
His countenance depart.

There is no measure of the pain
Her body did endure,
Yet in belief she did remain,
Immaculate and pure,

Beseeching Allah for a home,
A mansion by His Throne,
To roam the Garden, lofty, high,
And as she thought, alone.

But little did she know the Lord
Would gather all her love,
And destine her for marriage in
The heavens up above.

For do you know, my dear child,
Khadeejah did rejoice
At who would be fair Aasiyah's
Companion of choice;

That Paradise around the Throne
Shall feast and celebrate
When AbulQasim takes the hand
Of his beloved mate.

And that, my dear Aasiyah,
Was Aasiyah of old,
Who lives by Gardens of delight,
And beauty manifold.

Such beauty, manifold.

Inversion

You cannot know the good you sow
When into an imploring hand
You let your silver kindness flow
In ways that you had never planned;

And there’s no measure of the treasure
Burning in a starving breast
That you put out with even pressure
Till its hunger is repressed;

How angels sight the noble light
Resplendent in a hand that draws
A simple raiment to delight
A hapless wretch that naked was;

And when does sound the trumpet call,
Dissolving time in pools of space,
A cosmic call inverting all
That’s shaded by the Throne of Grace;

That day the hordes of tyrants crawl,
While hearts like faces bare it all,
All witnessing the justice done
To every thing and everyone.

That day the wretched roam as kings
With knowledge such inversion brings,
They know each worry-laden face
That on the earth did show them grace,

And rush them all through heaven's gates
To where the Messenger awaits,
To where the Messenger awaits,
To where the Messenger awaits.

The Parable of the Sincere Sinner

There once lived a man, so happy and blest
With but little good to his name,
For much he accumulated in sin
By deeds of remarkable shame.

And left he his sons instructions to burn
His body when he will have died;
Thus when came the time for him to return,
His dutiful children complied;

And true to his words, his ashes were spread,
One half of them over the land,
The rest of him went to the ocean instead,
Exactly the way he had planned.

But outside the realm of on-ticking time,
Where even does time have an end,
The Lord gave the earth an order sublime,
Commanding the ocean to send

Before Him the dirt defining the man
Attempting to hide in the earth,
Completing the glorious cycle began
Before he was destined for birth.

Addressing that soul in manner so plain,
The Lord did approach him as one
Who chidingly asks his child to explain
What made him do what he had done.

"I did so, my Lord, from fear of You,
Forgive me, a misguided slave",
And so shone the Light of mercy and love;
The best of forgivers forgave.

Now, this is a tale, a parable told.
Prophetic, insightful and true,
So don't you become so foolishly bold:
That man was sincerer than you

And I.

The Ant and the Feather Quill

Imam Ghazali's profound allegory of Tauheed (Oneness/Unity), recently transmitted by Shaykh Amin to a roomful of students of Introductory Theology.

Behind a gen'rous well of ink,
There stood an ant so wee;
For nothing did surround him that
Was littler than he.

He watched with great amazement when
A giant feather quill
Descended into blackness, then
Remained to drink its fill.

And thus the quill withdrew before
Returning for its sips,
Which made the ant to wonder what
Transpired tween the dips;

He ventured round the glassy well
And out his head did poke
To find the quill make strokes on what
Reminded him of oak,

And marveled at the written work,
Extolled the feather quill:
How utterly magnificent
Was its creative skill,

But as he watched, his eye did catch
Five fingers, slender, long
That grasped the feather quill with care:
A grasp so firm and strong,

And so the ant was overcome
With admiration true
For how the hand did wield the quill
To all its bidding do;

But short lived is such wonderment
For soon the ant did see
The subtle motions of an arm
That moved about so free.

The arm he traced to what he deemed
The body of a beast
With head and face that comely seemed
And noble at the least.

So turned he from the noble face,
Content he would not find
What underlay the vast of space
That leaves the seeing blind.

But man, unlike the ant, can see
Much more than just a face,
For knowledge of the intellect
Is with the human race;

The guided eye may even see
Beyond the intellect
Where inspiration is the light
That hearts of men reflect.

And so beside the inkwell of
Divine creation, we
Extol the means, but turn away
From what we cannot see.

But even did the little ant
Acknowledge with a sigh,
That all creation springs from One
Well hidden from the eye.

Signs

I think the rains reflect the pains
Of clouds that gray with grief,
That when the burden fail to bear,
They weep for some relief.

I think the winds reflect the sins
Of meadow, hill and vale,
That hold their breaths of passion air,
Then finally exhale.

I think the silent waves reflect
The ocean's desperate reach,
For how they roll till they despair
And crash upon the beach.

But clouds don't grieve, and hills don't sin,
Nor does despair the wave;
All signs created to reflect
My need to be a slave.

Parent's Wheel

In proper proportions of water and clay,
And merciful motions of formative play,
Expel the rebellious pockets of air
Resistant to fashioning fingers that care;

Position it all at the center, precise,
The center of pulsating goodness and vice,
And tend to this child with a nurture so warm
That molds it to beauty and perfected form;

As perfect as whatever may be the norm.


Inspired by a verbal exchange between my wife and this prolific craftswoman.

Ekphrasis of a Vase of Carnations

Vase of Carnations, oils on canvas by A. Chida

You carnations in foster care
Sit splendid in a dwelling where
Your newfound sibling baby breaths
Come forth to decorate your hair;

Like golden pheasants flocking free
Beneath a mercy cherry tree,
Whose fruit descend the leafy steps
In schools of seahorse company.

But for the pheasants fallen dead,
I'd call these creatures heaven-bred,
For how these walls of glass reflect
The heads of children tucked in bed.

In Loss

Part 1

You took away my m-and-m's,
My snickers, and my candy cane,
You said you care about me, but
I doubt you even feel my pain.

You came in with your know-it-all
Demeanor to enrich my brain,
To turn the television off
While on it all my friends remain.

Remember, at the hospital,
You showed you had no feelings when
You chose to simply stand aside
And watch a stranger prick my skin.

And then you hatched a complex plot
And sat back just to watch the show
Enjoying my mistakes and slips,
All just to say you told me so.

I hated you for all I lost,
My pleasures that you took away,
Your know-it-all demeanor, and
Correcting every word I say.

But when I cuddle up in bed
With Goodnight Moon upon your chest,
I'm cozy in your loving arms
And sorry for the things I said.

I'll never think those things again;
I feel so little when I see
How you bestow your love upon
An undeserving soul like me.

Part 2


You took away my wealth and home,
My car, my work, my every gain,
You said you care about me, but
I doubt you even feel my pain.

Ordaining with your know-it-all
Demeanor to enrich my brain,
I trusted all my friends but you
Divided us till none remains.

Remember, at the school that day
Could you not stop the stranger who
Took everything away from me?
Was that the best that you could do?

And as I live your complex plan
You sit upon your throne so high
And watch me make my many slips
Until the very day I die.

I think about the wealth I lost,
My pleasures that you took away,
Your knowledge and your power that
Shall hold me to each word I say.

But when my day on earth is done,
With time and all its children dead,
Will I be in your loving arms
And sorry for the things I said?

I'll never think those things again;
I feel so little when I see
How you bestow your love upon
An undeserving soul like me.

Waking Up

I wrote this piece to motivate my children to rise before dawn. They helped me with the first two stanzas.

An angel whispers something sweet,
I think it is my name,
I feel a hand upon my feet
And wonder what became

Of angel words, for there I see
Before my sleepy eyes
My mother smiling down at me,
A smile to make me rise.

But when she leaves, I tuck my chin
Into my knees, upon
My bed that feels so cozy in
The early light of dawn.

And now another whisper takes
Me back to yesterday,
To wonder why the heart awakes
Around this time to pray.

I open wide my eyes and think
Of all the peace I felt,
Exchanging sleep's delicious drink
For thoughts of when I knelt.

And all this thinking makes me long
To feel that love divine,
I stagger through this wake-up song
To make ablution fine:

The water on my hands and face,
The drops upon my head,
Around my feet they stream and race
Till all of sleep has fled.

Responding to the morning call,
I stand prepared to pray,
Then raise my hands and push it all
Behind me as I say

Allahu Akbar.