Adam Means Earth

BY SAMUEL MENASHE

I am the man

Whose name is mud

But what’s in a name

To shame one who knows

Mud does not stain

Clay he’s made of

Dust Adam became—

The dust he was—

Was he his name

Melody Cinema

BY:RAZA ALI HASAN

Humbling of Bhutto in Mecca, Bhutto kissing

Hajar-e-Aswad, half the Bhutto cabinet in Ihram,

kneeling. These were the first scenes, in the rolling

newsreel of half-closed doors, of the doorjamb

in the way of the twentieth century’s upstarts.

A nationalization, by Bhutto, of religious piety?

No, but a headlong scram into obeisance

of all and everybody and everything to the stately

rise of Islam in the neighboring, overbearing Arabia.

That year Bhutto had appointed my father

Hajj secretary, and we, the seven children and the ayah,

were present at Melody Cinema in full regalia

to see, to our amazement, on the screen,

our father in Ihram like Bhutto, and in a tent in Mina,

sitting on the ground in an ablution scene,

the humbling of our mysophobic mother,

who before her pilgrimage would have drunk water

only from a glass washed three times by a servant

and who wouldn't sit on the drawing-room sofa

unless it was draped by a freshly laundered sheet.

Speech

BY: KAZIM ALI

How struck I was by that face, years ago, in the church mural:

Eve, being led by Christ through the broken gates of Hell.

She’s been nominated for the position of Featured Saint

on the Icon of Belief, up against the dark horse candidate—

me: fever-ridden and delirious, a child in Vellore, unfolding

the packet around my neck that I was ordered not to open.

Inside, a folk cure, painted delicately in saffron.

Letters that I could not read.

Why I feel qualified for the position

based on letters I could not read amounts to this:

Neither you nor I can pronounce the difference

between the broken gates and the forbidden letters.

So what reason do we need to believe in icons or saints?

How might we otherwise remember—

without an image to fasten in that lonely place—

the rock on which a Prophet flung himself into fever?

Without an icon or church, spell “gates of Hell.”

Spell “those years ago unfolding.”

Recite to me please all the letters you are not able to read.

Spell “fling yourself skyward.”

Spell “fever.”

Ramadan

BY:KAZIM ALI

You wanted to be so hungry, you would break into branches,

and have to choose between the starving month’s

nineteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-third evenings.

The liturgy begins to echo itself and why does it matter?

If the ground-water is too scarce one can stretch nets

into the air and harvest the fog.

Hunger opens you to illiteracy,

thirst makes clear the starving pattern,

the thick night is so quiet, the spinning spider pauses,

the angel stops whispering for a moment—

The secret night could already be over,

you will have to listen very carefully—

You are never going to know which night’s mouth is sacredly reciting

and which night’s recitation is secretly mere wind—

I never seen such days as this

BY: SHOLEH WOLPÉ

Like the pied piper

the mullah drives his battered truck

through dusty villages, his loudspeaker

singing: Join the battle against the infidels.

Fight for Jihad and live eternally with Allah.

Lift up your guns for Him and you shall never die.

Barefoot boys ragged, hungry

from years of hard soil, follow him

dancing into the straps of loaded guns,

pirouetting into caves and broken buildings

And the boys end up in a land not their own

but are told God is everywhere.

Many die. Others disappear

into dark prison bowels

where each day if you are 12, twelve filthy men

one after another . . .

if you are 14, then fourteen is your lot.

A father sells tea from a cart,

one cup at a time, washes the tiles

of a mosque with a yellow bar of soap

to earn the ransom the soldiers exact.

Every night in his dreams his son stands, calling:

Father, I never seen such days as this.

Prayer Rug

BY: AGHA SHAHID ALI

Those intervals

between the day’s

five calls to prayer

the women of the house

pulling thick threads

through vegetables

rosaries of ginger

of rustling peppers

in autumn drying for winter

in those intervals this rug

part of Grandma’s dowry

folded

so the Devil’s shadow

would not desecrate

Mecca scarlet-woven

with minarets of gold

but then the sunset

call to prayer

the servants

their straw mats unrolled

praying or in the garden

in summer on grass

the children wanting

the prayers to end

the women’s foreheads

touching Abraham’s

silk stone of sacrifice

black stone descended

from Heaven

the pilgrims in white circling it

this year my grandmother

also a pilgrim

in Mecca she weeps

as the stone is unveiled

she weeps holding on

to the pillar

The Beginning of Speech

BY: ADONIS

The child I was came to me

once,

a strange face

He said nothing We walked

each of us glancing at the other in silence, our steps

a strange river running in between

We were brought together by good manners

and these sheets now flying in the wind

then we split,

a forest written by earth

watered by the seasons’ change.

Child who once was, come forth—

What brings us together now,

and what do we have to say?

My God

BY:SUSAN ROLSTON

Protestants pray for grace,

Scientists look to space.

Jews find truth in the Torah,

New Agers, in each other's aura.

Catholics are blessed by a Pope,

Yaquis enlightened by dope.

Maoris use ritual chants,

Navahos get up and dance.

Muslims bow daily to Allah,

Norsemen aspire to Valhalla.

Feminists swear by a She,

Quakers swear not, silently.

Confucians kowtow to ancestors,

Hare Krishnas, to airport investors.

Hindus revere Lord Brahma,

Richard Gere, the Dalai Lama.

Baptists believe in the Ark,

Physicists, in the quark.

Moonies obey Reverend Sun,

Mormons say Brigham's the one.

Daoists extol yang and yin,

Sufis transcend in a spin.

Shintos seek peace where it's grassy,

Rastas, in Haile Selassie.

When we meet in the Afterlife,

We can laugh at sectarian strife.

But meanwhile back to the wars,

'Cause my God's better than yours.