by Max Barry

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Region: Islam

Iron Bark wrote:The Voyage of a Scholar

On the day that paper clips and files
And memos snowed upon a city
I opened an unfamiliar book
To see what had brought that storm

Each night I brushed back dreams
By turning pages of profundity
To learn what had placed death
In the eyes of passport photos

The heavens opened for
Forty days within my mind and
Soul in a Noah’s flood of
Confusing certainties

The willing dead were absent in
Every word but my forty days
Left greater questions buoyant
And curiosity unvanquished

I sailed twenty times
In seven years through
Surah seas of calm swells
Pushed by winds of conscience

Twenty times I charted their
Depths – truly Pacific –
Before I knew that I
Knew nothing

When tranquil winds lifted
La ilaha illallah I heard a soft
Muhammadur Rasulullah
Slip without thought from my lips

A book read twenty times asked
When I would embrace its truth
And in a small stillness I replied
Now oh Lord, Now

—Joel Hayward, Splitting the Moon: A Collection of Islamic Poetry

mashallah thank you

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