The Far Mosque Read Free

with dissipating lust.

    Once I went up the mountain at daybreak, and still met pilgrims
    coming down who had woken for the journey earlier.

    In the tomb of not-Shams I prayed and prayed to be found.
    Am I the sun inside me?

    Shams will walk out the back door and never return.
    You will go mad—spend years looking for him.

    One day in the marketplace, estranged and weeping,
    you will understand the farthest mosque is the one within,

    and that the sun in the sky is not the one you orbit around,
    nor the one who went out the back door and never returned.

    Somewhere in the world now, every minute,
    a sun is dropping over the horizon into yesterday.

    At the fountain in the village square,
    the books are still sinking, bereft of your hands.

    Even the mountains are bending down to try to save them.
    Dear Shams-e-Tabriz, I do not mourn.

    You spindle me, sun-thorn, to the sky.

Said: In the Rain

    Wide in the hills he came to unearth the golden tablets.
    You put all this together one afternoon walking home in rain.

    Last night, after playing Satie you briefly believed
    the back of the mind was the only religion that mattered.

    Perturbed, you never wanted words graven in fire,
    but wished to be found there, buried in the hill-dirt,

    in the rain, a follower of a religion of water,
    and why not?

    Why not be an acolyte of the twisting ribbon of river?
    What else floods its way from great rock to oblivion?

    In a night divided into Satie and self-evidence,
    why not the religion of what always seeps back to itself?

    Why not a religion of water in a time of great fires?
    You fear you may drown, but your birth in it implies otherwise.

    Not that it is impossible to drown, but that
    this whole time you have been drowning.

Maya or Mayaar

    You will always be gone.
    All matter edges itself to dust.

    Sunlight a pool or flower or fountain.
    Music breaking the room to shards.

    But why fret? In one language
maya
means
    â€œall these molecules are breaking.”

    Your hands, the music, the paper, are not real.
    Not pieces of liquid or light, but light years.

    On the other side of the world you were taught
    other names for things.

    Mr. William touches the surface of the water with his hand,
    says:
mayaar.

    Water, light, light on the surface of the water
    or shining from beneath the water, are all fibs and fortunes.

    Music can break its fall.
    Light could speak.

    A year could open between
maya
and
mayaar
    That would provide perfect pitch against which you could practice.

    Beyond that you’re flailing, moon-licked, stunned,
    Music, sunstruck, rainstorm, begun—

Rhyme

    Restless your surface rise up be unraveled
    Unwrap the dusk to a light shell

    All the crevices in the oak are pierced by moon chords
    Rough sky unlocked shredded by meteors

    Vision-dusted thirsty night’s blue fastenings
    Second time this earth year the sun I leapt up in anger

    Birch bark unribbons to reveal all the secret roads
    Sun soaks the day’s façade in clouds and clots

    How fully I tack myself to the wind of anger
    While you life up the mountain match-struck immaculate

    Sun oracle prophesy solar flares along my skin
    Wind oracle forgive me perennially rude

    A long secret road unfastens from earth
    Frozen luck-thin snapping in unseasonable cold

    Four white roads crossing nothing into nothing
    Such low light through the bottle hanging

    Breath sieve mountain come break at the sea
    When lava that new country first enters the water

    The rock an immense fire river pouring onto the beach
    Saying all the words in the world rhyme

    Will wind winterful wending flood
    A bell brooding somewhere oracle

    A wolf-note sounding against the hush
    Somewhere thorned to the sun-spindle

    Spendthrift wind run spindle din drift
    Music kin shift cindered candle theft

    Soot riddle wicked fire
    Ash answer wind mouth

    Cave earth throat explain
    Why all the unhinged worlds rhyme

    Olga omen old friend
    Meddle metal birth foam

    Green notebook