I am written

You found my journal.

[maktooba]

Dear friends, salaam

I implore you to accept my apologies for my unexplained absence with the smile you might find on your face for a small flower growing in an unexpected place.

I have missed this place, and all the radiant souls whom I have had the honor of meeting here.

The most unapologetically human parts of me kept me from realizing that like everything in this impermanent دنيا, this world of unstoppable cycles of death and birth, الكون و الفساد, it could not stay safe forever.

And like the forest during the hurricane, this refuge has come into the eye of the storm - and though it may survive, it will be changed.

The last month, and its myriad voices, have brought a great change in me: a shift in my mindset.

I am committed to healing. I am committed to the healthy level of selfishness necessary to exist, not as a strain on those who I would have claimed to stay alive for, but instead as an existence with inherent worth. I am committed, no matter how difficult it may be to feel that worth. I am committed for myself, first, no matter how wrong it may feel to give myself that much, but recognizing with great gratitude the warm hands at my back.

I aspire to the honor of being helpful to others, even a joy to them.

My poetry has not kept pace with my resolution. I have long let the words come and lead me deeper inward, along heart-paths of sorrow, desolation, loss. And while I will always be grateful to the muse for sharpening the vision of my inner eye, that muse could never leave without wrecking me. Each poem was as much a diving-in as a staving-off.

What is more — it preserved my poet-self in a tragic formaldehyde, in a life unreal, for it allowed neither for growth nor decay.

I have taken to running; not to escape, but to better look outward, at my surroundings.

Until my muse catches up, I will not be writing poetry here. But friends, I will not be far. You know how to find me.

Much love,

[maktooba]

Admire without desiring attainment. Love without desiring possession. Listen without expectation of understanding. Speak soft words. Cry bigger tears. Repent alone.

[maktooba]

it was 3 (the 1st one) and 4

your intent is admirable. thank you

and yes, I clearly cannot count . But perhaps both of the third sentiments are somewhat inextricable…

be well, Anon.

[maktooba]

a letter

most precious of possessions - never mine were the moments it was written

the flow of emotion in the push of pen to paper slips through the spaces between my fingers, melts through the page in my hand, but marks it with its passing -

impermanence, a cursive stain

letter - holding no trace of the dissipated warmth of beloved hand on a page soft with wear, holding words that mean something one day something else the next

one does not frame letters. they are kept folded, perhaps tied, to be opened like a stranger’s novel

they are flowers on a grave

i keep them to honor the forceful current of time, in gratitude for our fragile breaths our constant rebirths - briefly existent, swiftly disappeared

[maktooba]

The Scholar - iii.

[maktooba]

delusion

of a lover in limbo - for there will always be another name to write on regenerating bones - old names sink into marrow before their grooves grow too deep with retracing - clearing space for the new

i must be happy, now, with no name but mine itching into my skeleton

"happy" - the echoes slap me with the depth of emptiness

i cannot stay here, for long, uninhabited

[maktooba]

"و قل رب زدني علماً"

"And say - Lord, increase my knowledge"

[maktooba]

"The wound is the place where light enters you." -Rumi Seen on a bathroom stall door

[maktooba]

who am I, that I could look upon these words dry-eyed

unmoved by words that - when recited from the heart - smooth the oceans' lined brow attract the gaze of stars to soft Earthly luminescence  bring forth the saltless tears of sky whose eyes are these? 

who would say they were a believer's?

[maktooba]

"Ik hawa jhoonka aaya 
Tuut dali se phool 
 Na pavan ki na chaman ki
 Kiski hai ye bhool 
 Kho gayi kho gayi
 Khushboo hawa mein kuch na reh gaya" The wind gusted in 
 A flower broke from a branch 
 Not the wind's, not the garden's Whose fault could this be? It is lost! Lost - its scent, in the wind! Nothing is left.

from "Mera Jeewan Kora Kagaz"

[maktooba]

The Scholar - ii.

endless words of heavy centuries rest quiet behind his brown-golden eyes -

If I am seeing more than him in their sunlit dance it is only fair - he sees more than me in my gaze

and perhaps when we sit, together- two dusty traditions clothed in slender flesh rebel anachronisms we will sit with the ease of two books on Earthen shelf

[maktooba]

what's the point of asking questions anonymously?

1) you are Puck

2) you want to do something kind for someone with no expectation of anything in return

3) you want someone to feel the universe's warm smile rather than your specific warm smile, and subtly influence their understanding of said universe

3) you want impunity for your words and thus - you think first of the impact of your words on yourself, then of their impact on your (probably confused, possibly intrigued) recipient

4) you don't have an account on tumblr

others?

[maktooba]

Bye?

الى اللقاء : literally, 'til the meeting (implied: until we meet)  

Google translate is deceptive in its simplifications, but since you're anonymous, you were unthinkingly left at its mercy. My apologies. To be fair, the phrase is commonly used as a farewell. Thank you for the lovely message and the intrigue.

[maktooba]

"Yeh Roshni Ke Saath Kyoon Dhuaan Utha Chiraag Se Yeh Khwaab Dekhti Hoon Main Ke Jag Padi Hoon Khwaab Se” Why must smoke, too, rise with light from a candle? I dream that I have awoken from my dreams.

from “Ajeeb dastaan hai ye”

[maktooba]

I cannot draw her

think storyteller - busy pen to animated page think quiet mirth nestling in calm brown eyes think strength running fast in small bones think short, sweet laughter bouncing like short hair think deep-buried turbulences, tiny warnings at down-curved edges of mouth think open hands - she will pull you to your feet, pat your heaving back and never speak of your tears think ears like pillow fortresses - safe keeper of heavy secrets think folding of self, finding fault inside - flaws no other can see in her - pained flecks in darkening eyes and I am in awe at the way her pain does not fill the space inside her - how so many small kindnesses flow uncounted, unbound by expectation from her fingers and her smile

[maktooba]

I'm living up again to my old reputation

Metric, "Wanderlust"

[maktooba]

The Scholar - i.

his voice - the trembling of mist on the sea low warmth quiet force distant waves - songs of other centuries waves far enough to admire without fear of deathly pull teach me, again, the beauty of muted color of voices heard from the unseen the beauty of ocean, through dusted mist the beauty of voices, through sigh of page