Life rushes past me —
I stand still, learning to love,
tired, yet not yet lost.
#906 On Tiredness and the Moral Self
The day has wrung me hollow, dry, and spent,
Yet still I press against the fading light,
While Junayd’s words pursue me where I went:
This dunya’s tribulations are our right.
Around me, souls rush headlong, chasing still
The gilded noise of this world’s passing show,
While I am worn by some ungrasped goodwill,
A gentler self I ache to come to know.
To purge the arrogance that clouds my sight,
To love more truly, humbly, than before —
Such is the labour of the moral night,
The quiet war no battlefield makes sure.
Today I am discouraged, tired, worn —
Yet from such soil is moral goodness born.
#905 On Losing the Role to Find the Self
I grieve the self that hid behind the part —
the careful voice, the grace rehearsed and sure,
the borrowed manner passed itself for art,
the mask so worn I took it for my core.
But shame runs deep beneath the gilded show;
the Void has whispered what I would not hear —
that all this competence conceals the woe
of wounds I dressed in praise year after year.
So let the coming months unmake the frame,
let unbecoming be the work I do;
perhaps I built my roles to dodge my shame,
and called that refuge something that was true.
For what the role withheld, the loss restores —
the self was never built for gilded floors.
#904 On The Blank Spaces in Prayer
At every prayer’s close there waits an empty space,
A line where one beloved name must go —
I write yours there, and try to draw your face,
Though what remains of it, I barely know.
The features blur; I reach for what I knew —
Only your eyes stay vivid, close and clear;
I wonder in the silence if I, too,
Still find a place in all you hold most dear.
Forgive me where I failed, as I forgive —
Though how the heart was shattered, I recall;
Today I gather up the shards and live,
And reassemble, odd-shaped pieces, all.
Perhaps my fears have made a liar of me —
And love endures, as steadfast as the sea.
#903 On The Weariness of Becoming
The day gave oxygen, my spirit soared,
I thrived amongst the crowd, alive, awake —
Then came the evening, emptied and ignored,
Too drained to think, too spent for thinking’s sake.
I am a creature made for voices, rooms,
For human warmth and questions, give and take —
Yet every dawn some other sorrow looms,
And every choice another self must break.
The future calls across an unknown sea,
The weekend beckons like a distant shore;
My very human fears I cannot flee,
Though grace and equanimity I swore.
Between the man I am and what’s to be,
The miles of tiredness stretch — and still, I see.
#902 On The Narrowing of the World
We were the ones who would remake the earth,
Whose dreams spread wide as any morning sky —
Each decade stripped another hope of worth,
And still we did not learn to say goodbye.
The novel unbegun, the cause unmade,
The love that asked too much, the road not crossed —
Not slain by fate, but gently, softly frayed,
Until we woke and counted what we’d lost.
Yet here is Dorothea’s quiet art:
To find, within the compass of one day,
The letter written with a generous heart,
The small, ungathered life given away.
No marble tomb, no monument, no name —
The good we do in secret is our fame.
#901 On The Tears that Fall
Tears fall, unashamed —
proof the heart still knows to grieve,
proof it yet lives on.
#900 Tentang Alunan Alam
Perlahankanlah langkahmu
Ambil nafas dalam, satu persatu:
Dunia akan terus berputar ligat
Meski engkau asyik menaruh keringat
Usah terlalu terburu-buru
Kerna setiap satu alunan alam ini
Berjalan mengikut takdir Ilahi
Walau betapa kau berhempas pulas
Walau seberapa kau berlari pantas
Tuturan Tuhan takkan pernah lari
Mulianya manusia datang dari kesedaran
Bahwa alam dunia bergerak atas aturan
Tuhan.
#899 On The Vanity of Seeking Fame
What profit hath the man who courts the crowd,
Who preens before the mirror of their praise,
And wraps his hollow worth in glory’s shroud
To bask within the lamp of borrowed blaze?
The tongue that sings its own unceasing song
Shall find its echo mute when silence falls;
The name that once was writ in marble strong
Becomes the dust that coats forgotten halls.
For fame is but a wind that shifts its face,
And those who chase it find an empty hand;
The crowd that now exalts shall soon erase
The idol it once raised upon the sand.
Then seek not what the fickle world bestows —
Before God’s throne, the truest self He knows.
#898 On The Cusp of Light
The mind is full, the week ahead looms wide,
With voices calling — wife and kin and all —
Yet in this quiet Saturday, I hide,
And let the pen and paper catch my fall.
I’ve chased the world and felt its tightened net,
Served everyone but left myself behind,
A glimmer stirs — not risen fully yet —
A soft and patient easing of the mind.
So let me breathe. Let cafe murmurs be
The gentle hum that loosens what is taut,
And in the hubbub, find that I am free —
Less lonely, more myself, more calmly wrought.
For I have loved, and still can read, and write —
Enough. Today, I’ll trust the coming light.