Usually, I watch the sun set

from the safe nest of my home

from the midst of my flowers and trees

babies, birds and beasts

- where I am  known, needed cared about

regardless and despite

- where I care for, need and know

without the hullaballoo of seemings.

There, I watch the daily sky cavort

lifting its phenomenal vein for just a mystical moment.

But today, encased behind the air-conditioned skins of mammon

in sky-scraping presumption

the same grace still flows into more than  my eye

jolting my preconceptions out of their easy groove.

 

The same mountains where the Messenger must have trod

and daily seen, see I.

Over the oasis, the sky is silky peach

immemorial as Eve

with the city lights of dusk, glittering

while the mosques, all fairy lit, call for prayer.

 

Mecca Al Meccarima, the Holy is just down there

due south from my eye

over the lava fields and rocky hills.

So we all bow down and say

yes, to You O God, is surely all glory, praise, authority!

By the minute, each moment bears witness to this

our open-mouthed awe, our puny scrabblings;

- the stones, the earth sings out!

 

And the sun-setting.

 

 

 

 

Jan 1985