A Never-Ending Story Awaits

A blanket of water,
A night light of moon,
A wild imagination of what will be soon.

Wound up like a clock,
Winding down with the stars,
A small relief with each tock,
A tick closer to it being ours.

To deal with the pain of the longing,
We must connect to the source
Of love, the One residing above,
Each atom of love set in its course.

Let us ponder over His blessings,
Bridging the gap between us, my dear,
Descending the heavens,
Each blessing a lesson,
Counting the countless till you're finally here.

We Plan, He Plans

Our to-do lists are reduced to nothingness
By your pages with dried ink, stained,
And your plans encompass our plans
Until inevitably they are one and the same.

Instil in us trust,
The like instilled in birds of faith,
So that when faced with our sea of troubles,
Just like Musa عليه السلام, all we see is a path leading to You.

Your Brother's Struggle

Each of us carry mountains
Behind these airbrushed smiles,
It's funny, we appear to float fleetingly,
Like clouds across a barren sky,
While our feet remain firmly planted in the ground.

One man's mountain is another's molehill and
One man's molehill is the other's mountain;
And sometimes, the dust of another mountain is revealed to you,
And tears wash away those perfunctory smiles.

The dust of the dust is stifling,
The tears project a struggle,
And reflect, not your weakness,
But the boundaries of your capacity.

Eternal moments pass.
The storm subsides.
Eyes constrict their flow.
Smiles return their glow.
You regret ever asking after the mountain.

Silence

Ask the seeker of solace in silence, about the beauty of its sound to the one who seeks it.

Do we ask in silence and is the seeker of solace silent?

Well, their silence is telling,
You'll find their smiles selling
The sweetness of the unspeakable
Of which they indulge in;
But ask away and they'll say,
Using words to explain,
That sound matters much
To bask in absence of the same.

Man

Consuming, consumed in, consumed by the world,
The degree of our depravity deduced by our inability to disconnect,
The river of degradation runs deep,
Wherein we lie drowning, not counting blessings
But the seconds when we're not chasing the world,
As if the absence of consumption is suffocating.
Blessed. Blind.
A man with a gift so precious, heaven's heart would implode,
A man with a gift, burdened both by the weight of its message
And the arrogance of his naive acceptance to deliver the same.
The message is sweet, bound by the mesmerising curves of its letters
And its mellifluous flow;
its recitation the height of angels' envy,
Masked only by their vigilance at the tipping of the scales.
So tick tock, walk with the clock
And make these moments count.

Winter Walks

My route to work strewn with the forlorn sight of dead and dying brollies;
Their metal limbs twisted; fallen soldiers not built for the storm.

Return route.

No sign of the brollies. Forgotten and now lost
Like their lives at the cost of their bearers once served behind firing lines,
Riddled with cloudburst.
The storm sleeps, ushered away by a lingering evening mist.
The way is paved for a new dawn.
Their brothers in arms are summoned for service.
Yesterday's survivors strengthen to face the elements once more.

The Traveller's Prayer

Breaching its borders and crossing its oceans
To travel its length and breadth,
A wise and wilful wanderer
Is summoned by sustenance or death,
So go forth and seek out the wayfarer's prayer
Before his time is spent,
For his silent prayers penetrate Heaven's veils
And echo blessings that are heaven-sent.

Self-discipline

The discipline in which many of us are most disciplined is the relentless art of continually making excuses for ourselves. In fact, so much of our creativity is consumed by the toxic carving of our cover stories, which we conjure up when instead we should be striving, in an extraordinary circle of inanity where we are both the deluder and the deluded.

Tell yourself you have a problem. If there's something in particular you're keen to achieve, talk to others about it; this'll help keep the dream alive. Take small steps towards it; this'll open doors. Plan your hours the night before; this'll minimise idleness.

Make dua.

Believe.

Strive.

Succeed.

Death

Each night I lie and sleep with death,
Through skin and bones I feel its breath,
I hold my breath and clutch my chest,
Oh, lest I turn and find I face,
The one whom I know waits for me,
She waits and watches as I sleep.
The heater creaks and the clock croaks to a halt,
Time's up too soon and the time is now.
I replay my day but I find no friend
With a deed to lend for me to make amends.
My toes curl up, my time is spent,
My face turns pale, the darkness heaven-sent.
But from beyond the shadows, she retreats for the night and blows me a kiss,
Bequeathing naught but a blinding bliss,
A warm dreaded truth before the next day starts,
In the form of cold, loving whisper as she finally departs:
'In joy, in luck, in pain, in sorrow,
You're made for me and are mine to follow,
You crawl unto me as I run unto you,
Beat the dying day until the same time tomorrow.'