by Avellina Balestri
(For my Muslim friends, whose ancestry lies across the Islamic East, particularly Adil Mulk, and in solidarity with the struggles of the Palestinian people.)
People of the East,
Carved of earth and sand,
Cut by river and wind,
And the wild will to live
Under the blazing sun of the One,
You bear the grace of the camel driving song
And the music only the wali hears.
Great and small submit themselves
Before the Absolute.
Foreheads kiss the ground that weeps,
And the rising and falling like a wave,
From the sea foam of white robes,
Rolls around the Holy House.
The whirling of the dance disappears,
Like the sins laid upon the black rock.
You are beautiful like rough stone
Shaped by the elements
That cracks and bleeds
Like the beseeching lips of lovers
Or the poets who refuse to sleep.
So springs the stream ‘neath Maryam’s date tree,
And the water Ismail drank, fathering the nations.
The flood has the same Source
And pours from the same summit,
For Mercy is a Mother’s Love
For the child that grows in her womb,
Like prayer grows beneath the masjid’s dome,
And the heart’s blood flows like a sacrifice.
The angels split one divine veil,
And the mountain crumbles,
But in that capitulation is dignity
Which the proud cannot conceive.
You are stark like the sky
And you gleam like the stars
Too old, and too young, to burn out
You are stubborn in your pain,
And your patience will bring reward.
The eyes of the world see your dance of atoms
And the broken bricks and bones.
But there is wisdom buried in them
And it screams until the universe vibrates.