Ismaili.NET - Heritage F.I.E.L.D.

YOU whirligig windowless jasper dome

with the hump of an old wife, power of youth

we your brood and you the unloving mother

you our mother! and yet so vengeful.

Black silent clay, this body s your baby

(not pure Intelligence nor rational Substance)

the body - abode of noble sublimities

and you the mother, mother of the house . . .

When I finish my work in this house today

I shall be off alone and tomorrow the house is yours.

MY SON this corpse of yours, this prison

will never be lovely even draped in silk brocades;

embellish your soul with the jewel of SPEECH

for the soul is ugly even in silk brocades.

Can you not see God s chains on your ankles

(only awakened souls can see them)?

Be a man in your chains and cinch your belt

nor dream your cell the realm of DARIUS:

those wh act in moderation find

kingdoms wider far than his.

Patience! no one finds heart s desire

but a man of patience;

and for sexual lust open the Qur an

to the story of Adam and Eve.

Stay out of harm s way and do no hurt

but justly, eye to eye:

stick to no petty grudge like the brambles

nor like the datepalm bend in humiliation

for dung is thrown in the pit because it sinks

sweet incence burned for its refreshing fragrance.

Don t run around with everyone nor shut yourself up alone -

walk wisdom s way - be neither fly nor gryphon:

if there s no one around worth talking to

then 100 times better alone than with idiots

(the SUN s alone - who blames it

or calls it less than the seven PLEIADES?)

Don t screw up your face at more or less;

do with what s given and be equitable with all.

The states of this vagabond world are fleeting

cold after heat, joy after sorrow -

better not to have grabbed for ephemeralities.

Listen - GOOD ADVICE - don t be a bilious fool.

Who cares if the earth is littered with pebbles or gold:

you will lie in your grave beneath a shack or a palace

(remember the man who built a castle in SANAA

now fallen to ruins in a ruined city).

The world s - a cunning devil whom the wise

have never cultivated for companionship;

if you have an ounce of sense don t swagger

in its sulphurous wake like a drunken clot.

The world s a bottomless mudchoked well -

don t lose your purified soul in its cloudy depths

(your soul purified by SPEECH - as the wise

through LOGOS have flown from well s-bottom to the stars).

Take pride in speech as the Prophet (who willed

not even a camel to his heirs) treasured his eloquence;

come to life in speech as Jesus

raised the dead with a word;

make yourself known through speech

for no one known if not by what he says . . .

But if you ve no ideas sew up your trap

for a word unspoken s better than an asinine remark.

Carve your utterance straight as quarrel s shaft

then shoot - don t fumble the bow.

Pay your attention to words than good looks

for man is SUBLIMED through speech not stature

(the almond gives better fruit than willows

or poplars which are taller;

a sober man may look like a tramp

but his words will brand him no drunk).

The ocean of LOGOS are the lovely words of God

sparkling with gemstones, glowing with pearls.

The outward form of Revelation: bitter as a gulp

of seawater - sweet pearls its innards to the wise.

If sunken treasure lies in ocean deeps

look for a diver - why run vainly down the strand?

Why has the Creator sunk these chests

of gems in briny weeded troughs?

Tell for the Prophet s sake! Who told HIM

to entrust the hermeneutic to the wise, words to the rabble?

The diver surfaces with a handful of slime

perhaps because he sees in you an enemy . . .

look for the pith of Revelation, don t follow the herd

content with husks like asses with their braying.

On the NIGHT OF POWER the mosques are bright as day

with your candles - but your heart is pitchy as 12 o clock;

don t waste wax - for tappers cannot banish

darkened from an ignorant heart.

You have not learned piety but from sheer pride

you solve riddles at midnight in an ebon well . . .

if you re not a snake why dot he believers

tremble in your hands and the Christians fear you?

Cease this rambling and giggling at the fortunes of life

for nothing on this dusty globe belongs to you.

How often the spinning spheres distracted the wise

and thrown their perfect peace in turbulence?

DARIUS left behind his slaves, his concubines

his castle and gold and departed with a decaying bag of skin.

Earth is a vulture, no creature safe

from its beak, neither lord nor butler.

A day comes in which is no shelter nor refuge

from the arbitration of a just and equitable Judge;

at that hour all shall be paid for their deeds

both the just and the unjust receive justice;

on that day of tumult in that turbulent crowd

before the martyrs of God I shall take refuge with

THE DAUGHTER OF MUHAMMAD

so that God the Almighty may decide

between me

and the enemies

of the household

of the Prophet.