From My Solitude
Jareer Abu-Haidar
Where, my Lord, shall I pray,
if I should long for Your epiphany?
What prayer-niche can put away
every abasement from my prayer?
How, O my Lord, shall I cast off
the weight of this humiliating life?
How, my Lord, shall I purge
my wines of every trace of vinegar?
Where, my Lord, shall I pray?
If my eye should weep one day
when the light turns to go,
mingling its drunken train
with darkness and with shadow;
or if I should call to it
while no glance inclines toward me,
and the face of the star that looks down
enthralls me from its heights —
where, my Lord, shall I pray?
And if my night should come
without a star or a new moon,
nothing but a wave of darkness
and a stillness that lets down no rope,
and I long for a setting forth
without fetter or shackle,
before the face of dawn, my Lord,
with the departing night —
where, then, shall I pray?
If my eye should see one who feeds
from a destitute hand,
without longing or wishes,
without hopes to console him,
and should see what makes him forget awhile
even the calm of a wearisome life,
without finding, O my God,
any answer to give him —
where, my Lord, shall I pray?
My Lord, if my spring should come
with blossoms and with dew,
and my soul walk out to meet
a thousand friends upon its hills,
and I breathe in fragrance and rapture
in every place,
and the whole universe move in my breast
without slaking my rancor —
where, my Lord, shall I pray?
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