Nooj

Between my shadow and my soul

The Prayer Mat

A symbol
Of the mobility 
Of Faith
"All the world is
A place of prostration"
All spaces 
A place of 
Meditation

This simple piece
Of rectangular 
Cloth makes 
The world 
A home and a 
Remembrance

That night 
She had forgotten
In her haste 
To not lose
Time, Or receding 
Daylight 
This valuable 
Piece of cloth

And as her 
Head touched the
Wooden parquet floor
And the sun slowly subsided,
She hoped the Faith
In her heart 
Would spread
Like a carpet of 
Protection and comfort

This act, so reassuring,
Heartwarming,
Paradoxically,
Uplifting.

Attached to Me


Do you not yearn for your bright-eyed stare
Which made the world seem like dazzling light and wonder
And let you forget as soon as your gaze was distracted,
Or your fumbling grasp that tightly clasped onto a finger
But not onto anger or hurt,
Chubby growing muscles that found challenges stimulating
And not a gateway to anxiety or self-pity,
Strong angry voices could evoke temporary discomfort
But no memory of the sharp words your parents exchanged remained

The maturation of neurons leads to the inevitable
Attachment, memories, emotions, ambitions, disappointments
The more of which we have, the more we are compelled to strive
Not just for self actualization, but for the attachments we
Believe lead us to love and identity. Such fluid yet enchanting ideas
In a temporary world based on arbitrary values we
Hold onto our fantasied ideals and what is more
We fight our own wars in their name

Intelligence gives us more to care about,
More to lose, more to believe we own
More to say is Me
And ego preservation is one of the most powerful
Forces, for good and otherwise,

That increasingly binds us to survival as we Live 

What a Man sees in a Woman’s face

What a Man sees in a Woman’s face
Is so much more than she could imagine, or realise
In that moment.

One glance reveals a soft endearing sweet tenderness,
Too easily crushed

An involuntary blush in her cheeks,
Is the beginning of many a daydream

A squint in deep dark eyes,
Reveals an intelligence that could fill galaxies
And could be the secret to unlocking her desirous laugh

A downward glance is surely both sides of a precious coin,
Shy idiosyncrasies and a wit that is bright as the noon sun

The turn of a head belies some of her underlying steel
At this the man becomes aware of the danger
What can enchant can hurt, what hurts feels hurt

And yet this thought is quickly displaced by the promise
Of hearing her voice. Words  are the sixth dimension that
Could confirm, or forever abolish the Above.

What a Woman sees in a Man’s face,

Is not to be revealed, as yet…

The Unrightness of written rites

There's something ridiculously ironic
About pens zigzagging across color coded pages
Symbolising all we've had, them and I
As if these reams of scattered phrases
Are meant to be their rite of passage. I would rather
Some perception of mine follow them through the examination door
Where they're not behind a desk but rather in front of a wheel
Steering a life, a career, livelihoods, families, organisations,
And their own development
And even if in one moment out of a hundred thousand some concept, 
Remark, realisation is brought to life
My next decade of teaching will be indebted
Definitively in my mind, 
One's mark is not quantitative. For either of us...

ETA: ........




Worship, in its serene awareness, is a journey
The journey that we were all waiting for
And perhaps overlooked in the singular obsession
With a destination. Our everyday illusions of destinations,
Of “arriving”, conflicts with our natural purpose
This anxiety about the destination obscures the journey
So that the Arrivals Lounge is filled with senseless ghosts
And in the striving, dungeoned crevices of the earth
Live those aware and mindful and free