Fi Jatsimani intazartu
W'intazart 'abathan
Nimtum fi sa'atu-l abad
Wa nimtum daiman abadan
In the Garden of Gethsemane I waited
In vain
I'd heard the call
I'd known
At once
I'd heard the call
And shivered
And doubted
And denied
And lost faith in denial
And believed
And obeyed
For who was I to refuse
And dogs began to follow me
I found them food
And people then
And birds of clay
Like those from childhood days
Assembled around me
And called me "Marja'"
And called me
"Mawlay"
And waited
With eyes deep and maddened
For me
Of all people
To speak
Of all people
To them
Of their pain
Which they'd swallowed
Since their day of birth
And of which they were choking
(For they knew it and yet
Couldn't name it)
They were starved
And downtrodden
And skinned and gutted
By Rome
(Rome, thou darkest chain
Within,
Erect cross
Against the sky
Who art a sweetened chalice
Of poison)
I sighed and bowed
To wash their feet
(For, seeing the dust and the scar and the callus, what else is
There to do?
A minimum, I thought, to offer
Of hospitality)
Their backs, used to whips and yokes,
And their dogs, used to stones and rods,
Straightened for one crazed and somehow immortalised
Moment
And their ache within bone and muscle seemed
Sweet
Just then
And their eyes went out in search
Of mine
Never
Had I known
Such fear
But something within
God knows!
Something I never knew was there
Within me
Was touched
Deeper
Than any touch would go
And I said: What is it?
What is troubling you so?
And they couldn't
Say
They had
No words
Just suffering
Stark and immense
And open wounds
No doctor dared
To approach
And no medicine could cure
I said:
I feel it too
And they went out of
Their mind
For never had they known their was
Someone who'd acknowledge, recognise, understand
And partake of the hidden, most excruciating
Unspoken
Of leprosy I spoke,
Of lameness,
Of nightmares and terrors
True as death
I said:
There is no God
But God
"But how?", they said,
"But how?"
Watch, I said,
And suddenly
They cried out
As I touched,
With my own bare hands the wounds
That were festering and putering
In the depth of their hearts
And suddenly
There was healing
And there was seeing and knowing
What never had been taught, nor thought
Was grasped in an instant, in a way
That made solid
That soul which makes lions and men
There was strenght beyond strength and might beyond
Anything
There was life, there was passion
And sacred trance, ecstasy
That lasted, solidified and manifested the breath
Of that living, universal whole
Which permeates the stars and roses
The dust of which gives rise to man
"And if we can cut through
Letter and veil to the soul,
Right to the source from whence it comes,
What then shall become", so they asked,
"Of the veil?"
In truth, I said, women, too, shall be men
And no hand raised a stone
And no eye went astray
Grapes bled unto their hungry tongues
I spoke of wine
That makes not drunk,
Of veils that make not blind
But seeing,
Revealed and not
Invisible
And a woman spoke up
And I knew her to be
The only one
Who saw
My beginning,
My ending
And that night
In the garden
She knew and she smiled
It shall be her
In the end
She shall be
My own veil
By the will
Of Allah
Her hidden hand shall dispense
The grace of ever-loyal
Zahra
Moneylenders and bureaucrats,
Praetorian Guards, public liars,
Heredetary senators, traders, scribes,
Crucifiers:
Thousand-headed Rome whom no one knows
Face to face
Faceless weight of a mountain range
That makes its kill without a trace
Rome whose peace has drenched the earth
In blood,
Rome whose yoke makes a slave of every
Free man,
Rome whose luxury breeds an industry
Of decadence
Whose rotting fleshpots are corrupting
The earth
Rome who promise
The unattainable
To him whom your power alone
Has denied it
And whose promise, like the siren's, is forever
Witheld
Rome who rules
By bread and games,
Through diversion and division
And by the nails of the cross
Driven through
Every bone
Brute is your force in our parts
And hollow your liberty
In restless Imperial race
You scourge the earth
From West to East,
From North to South
To nourish the pace
Of your twinheaded greed
Blessed the hand who seizes your first-born
And smashes them
Against the cliffs
Selah
Being a hostage of Rome,
I cannot call her
By name
And must cast my vote
When my vote is required
To legitimise Herod and Kaiphas
For the Roman vote is always
For Rome
And one butcher is as good
As another
So I said
Simply:
Present your passport to him
That has issued it
And cast your name in his fashion
And speak not to him
Your true name
And the coin he has minted,
Render it unto him
For that is where it goes
Ah, the broken sword in your hand
Glowed with the vengeance of man
But I said: It is not
Now
And your tears burnt your hearts
But I said:
He that defeats you without
Cannot defeat you
Within
And time
Is not his
And not yours
Do not say, so I spoke,
"A disappointment of time",
For it is God that is Time
And the fruit of all time
Hitherto
Is contained and present
Within every moment
And with every day, every decade
Its fruit ripens to come
Into its own
You were comforted then,
For I did not say:
Every century
For you'd grow tired
And desperate, knowing life
To be finite
And not knowing infinity
And the victory that lies
In the moment when end and beginning
Brush lips
And they listened
Like in a dream
And each heard what he heard
And they flocked to the stonehouse
With the mud floor and the roof thatched
With palm leaves, just like theirs
And each heart echoed a longing
Entirely its own
And what that longing spoke, they took
And put into my mouth
The word
Was little, anyway
Compared to
What they sought in it
And what they thought that its meaning
Ought to be
You alone!
To have found you
Was the meaning of all
It was you I spoke to
First and foremost
And perhaps
You alone
And of this
I'm not ashamed
For
No arrow
Would meet its aim
Were it fired
At the multitude
And not
At the one
And everything else is as fate has
Ordained
And cripples crushed by the quarries
By the mines and the galleys
By the building sites and the workshops
Farmers crushed by the tax laws
And lovers crushed by the bride price
The despised and the fallen,
And the daughters whose names
Were erased on the day of their stoning
Crushed by the law of
Subjugation,
Unspeaklable they and unspoken and never truly
Alive
Liberators crushed
At Masada
And you, with your
Broken swords
All these came and screamed out
Or were all silent and still
And their words
And their silence
And their terrible
Eyes
(Eyes like stones
Frozen
Halfway
Through their pain,
The eyes of water buffaloes,
Or of men incarnated
As absurd beasts of burden)
Said: All we are
We owe to Rome
And I said: It is you
Who suffer Rome
To be Rome
Ah, there were women and men
Beside you
That went with me
And I never turned them
Away
I just said:
Make no mistake -
It's not peace you shall find
The High Priests
In the temple
And the lords of the land
Who serve themselves best
By serving Rome
Shall make use of Rome
Against you
And all those who fear
All that is
To be feared
And those who seek comfort or safety
Shall join up with them too
(And who doesn't?
This you know
To be true )
"La ya marja',
Qutb az-zaman!
Not I, and not such as are loyal",
Cried he, the zealot, the faithful,
The Rock
I laughed:
Before the cock has crowed,
You'll have denied me thrice
"Mercy!", he cried out,
"If that is
What man is,
What hope is there for man?"
Man that is now
Is not yet man,
I said to him; he sighed:
"It is that smile I shall remember,
That bittersweet smile you would smile
Melancholy and burning
Worn by the wisdom of one
Who has seen beyond pain,
Beyond joy, beyond doubt
And human promises - yes -
Half patient, half brusque
And all true in a way
That spares nothing and spares no one
Ever"
Man that shall be, I said,
Will know
What makes it so
"Man that shall be,
What man is he?",
He asked and I replied:
Ben El
"The ancient word", said he,
"And its meaning?"
"Man that has cast off his two yokes:
That of the mind and that of man,
Of inner and outward condition
And women then
Shall be as men
And women and men as Bnei Elim"
"Dark is your meaning and obscure",
Said they that listened as we stood
In Gath Shmani
I smiled:
"Too plain
For such as were raised
In the language of Rome
Which can't call a thing by its name
Alas, entwined
With the yoke of Rome is that of the clergy
And that of the kings
And hence it is the simile
Alone that can be spoken
To touch the core of things
In the Garden of Eden
When the Father planted the seed
Of the forbidden fruit
He endowed it with the key
To all that
Can be known
And sealed it with Solomon's ring
The greatest gift that love can make
In offering itself
Pretending
To withdraw itself
So the lover must seek out
At the seas' darkest bottom
The pearl he believed to be lost
As if beginning and end
Were not one in their course
As if that which is given
Could be taken away
Thus the Beloved
Guides the hand of the lover
And thus love's purpose was conceived
And love's ultimate scheme was devised
In the Garden of Bliss
The Father's knowing hand guided
The male-female of ancient days
Who dwelled therein in completeness
Towards the fruit which he forbade
By taking a part out of the indivisible whole
And making it appear a second,
A twofold and a manyfold
And manifesting himself as another
In the illusion
Of duality
For all that is one
Has a twofold within
So that beginning can end,
So that end can begin
And my thou can bear your me
"The dual meaning of each word",
Said he whose eyes bore not the twilight,
Nor did they bear the doubt,
"Is carved deep into our skins
By the blade and the fasces of Rome
Rome which seeks out
Our dreams
And hides in our houses
So we no longer be masters of either
Rome which takes the land's produce
And sells it to us
At the price of perdition
Rome whose bureaucracy
Drives its tentacles' mesh
Into the flesh of all that breathes
Into the guts of all that farts
Excuse my language here"
And he bowed his head and he lowered
His gaze
And he raised it again
And he spoke:
"The usurers, brokers and changers,
The parasites of the land
And the servants of Rome -
Did you not clean them out
From the temple yourself
In which they have long made their home?"
Aye, said I, I struck them hard
I raised my hand against that breed
Which sells and runs the land
Ah, for the sake of the Golden Calf
Were the Tablets of Stone broken
And whoever serves Mammon
Serves the idols of Rome
And not the God that gives him life
And not the earth that bore him
Death is his master
Rome
His god
Barren his soul
A lump of dead meat the heart
That beats within his chest
His work is the ruin
Of all his ill-fated hand touches
Perish he
Or the temple
Shall perish
"Yet still",
Said my faithful friend,
"They are there,
And you're here
And although the truth you speak
Is born
Among the fishermen and toilers,
Among the women
And the poor
The lie that lives among the kings
Thrives in the palaces and town halls
And multiplies within their web
That permeates our dealings
In the scribes' offices it is written,
In the Roman senate it is hallowed
In the temple itself it is
Beatified"
Aye, my brother, said I,
That is why I teach what I teach,
And do so in the way I do
For the sickness is felt
In the body
And the cure is found
In the mind
And the answer will come
When the question is named
When the seed is ripe,
The harvest
Shall be reaped
"And thus, shall we reap it?",
He asked
And I said:
Many are called.
Few are chosen.
"And we?"
Anxious his question
Calm my reply:
You
Shall be chosen
It is you that shall make
My word heard
And bear the curse of those who will
Pass this night sleeping
And deny me in turn
And seek to stand to my right
When empires are built in my name
Not knowing that this world is a mirror
On account of which the sides
Are reversed
You, friend,
You cannot be untrue
And hence it falls to you
"A thousand sighs I sigh for this"
Said he, "that it falls to the faithful
To question the nature of faith
And that among these the most loyal
Must be he that brings forth
Into the world temptation"
Who else, I asked
Would do?
Who else be trusted
With the task
That anyone but he would shirk?
God Who is matter absolute
In its entirety
Brings forth the mirror from within
And exiles His totality
From one part of itself
To flood the vacuum thus wrought
Like a vessel of light with His light
Whole is this light which binds the dark
And breaks its vessel open
And smashes into fragments thus
Its core which drifts apart
Fragments of light, fragments of darkness
Emerge and light bleeds
Into darkness
And the tree in the Garden bleeds into
The world
And those within must leave it
To plunge into the depths to gather
The sparks of light exiled in them
Like they themselves are exiled
To unite beginning and end; Light
With Light
Aye, no reason is there
For the world and its fires,
Its cycles, its hopes and its pain
But that the self can see the self
Through this mirror alone
Which creates Thou and I
Within reflection's vacuum
And thus alone it becomes what it is
And gravity must draw the law
Into the patterns of its breath
In falling and rising, projected
Onto the canvas of the void
To manifest all that can be
To take form through the servant
That asks no reward
But to burn in the flame
Like a log in the fire
To be one with its light
Which endures
"To kiss your lips, my lord"
He said
"I shall forfeit salvation
To carry the word that is spoken to her
I shall embrace the mask of exile
And be the union of the bride
With him who owns her heart
In love's injustice I rejoice
I am the glass that shall be broken
By the feet of the groom
On the day of the feast
The sacrifice of mourning
And the gift that is offered
When the promise is made
Until the day all things revert
To their true names once again"
You burn me, friend
I cried in rapture
For through your shadow is filtered
My light,
Which is not mine nor yours
You take away my fear
The stone
Rejected by the builders
In you and me becomes
A cornerstone of the world
To emerge
Long have we tired of the yokes
Of Rome and Babylon
Of fear and greed and empty hopes
Now we shall forge within all hearts
The sword that strikes at all they are
I shall go the first step
Which is the step of an aeon
And he that follows me
Shall leave no stone unturned
With the spirit of comfort
He shall raise what has fallen
And the waters shall part
As they will before me
As I taste of death and live
Going through all the terrors
The oppressor inflicts
And emerge only strengthened from it
Until the last shall be the first
And my brothers who toil the land with
Their sweat
And my sisters sustaining their lives
Bearing the brunt of all that kills
And all that brings back life
Shall know their hands to be the branches
That feed the tree of victory
And raise them as one to the heavens
To touch the core of all that is
And resurrect from death and waste
The earth with your word
Which is the logos renewed
Ah, my mother's wail tore through
The garden
For now it was done and there was
No way back
And she knew and she couldn't be
Just devout and
Serene
For a mother's a mother
And she'd never
Consent
To have a son sold
To the butcher
Whatever the stake and
Whatever the price
"God wills it", he said
But she cried: Where is
Your mercy?"
"Your mother",
He stammered
And I said: Who is
My mother
"Your brothers are here", they said
"And your sisters to plead
That you might bend
Perhaps"
And who are my brothers, my sisters,
My mother?
Those are they, said I
Who have come
To hear
To seek with me,
To witness
To share the path
That I must go
Tall as a reed
I stand and they
Who are my father, my mother, my siblings,
My me
Swaying like reed
In the storms of the age,
Under the tormentor's whip,
Under the torturer's baton
But never bending,
All the same
Wearing the crown of thorns,
Oh Mother,
Which Rome has bequeathed
Upon us
Don't you see
That the die is cast,
As they say,
That I can't let go
That I can't be safe
Anywhere any more
That I must break your heart
Twice, alas, in one day
But you've borne me to meet my fate
On a day like this day
And the chalice won't pass me by
And there's nothing to do
For the mirror needs to be true
And happy it need not be,
Nor do I, nor do you
And there's no cause to lament
If it goes one way or the other
It is well
Either way
Any way
Tired of walls
And invisible prisons
Denied to exist
And omnipresent and stark
Like Rome's mark on our soul and flesh
So the world they proclaim to be one
Is divided
And becomes two, becomes three
Becomes fire and water
And one hand touches not the other
Across the abyss
Of its poles
Tired of doors and boots slammed in my face
Tired of people of the swift Roman breed
Shrewd, sharp and shallow
And eternally sluggish of reason
Eager to seize the spoils
And speed the brother's downfall
Tired of pious folk
Who make whores of the innocent
To stone them with impunity
Tired of those who put the word over meaning
And seize it by the throat
To rape it till it bleeds to death
Tired of the tribunes who vow to stamp out
Corruption
Which is the subject's only hope
To slip through the net of the ruler's caprice
Whose law is the will of his class
Sanctified
The deathtrap which the few
Who call their freedom Freedom
And their dictate democracy
And give to him who has
Have set for the millions who don't stand
A chance
Tired of parroting edicts,
Reducing life to food grab
And coveting the useless
Tired of Rome's eternal one-size-fits-all
I, a carpenter born at point zero
Shall protect my truth now
In the only way I have got
What shall you make of me?
That is not in my hands
And, frankly, I couldn't care less
For my life and my truth
Belong to God
As for this world of yours,
I have left it behind
And therein lies
My victory
Let the dead bury their dead
But do me one favour, I said
Wake with me
In this night
(It would have cost you nothing
But it was too much to ask)
Bi Gath Shmani saport li
Wa saport li l-spiquta
Dmikh lawkhon antun w'damkhiton le'alma
You slept, you are sleeping, you sleep
Until time reaches its fill
And beyond that you cannot but sleep
Wondering if life
Was a dream
But I know death to be real
Anyhow
In the end
And fear not what is real,
For what is real is God
But I fear those who sleep
While the moon is reddened with blood
And the upright are cut down
Like living trees whose deep shade
Would have tempered the storms of the age
And here I walk
Through your sleeping
You who called yourself brothers
And called yourself sisters and lovers
To me
And in this night
There is no one
While my forehead perspirates
Stark red blood
And the henchmen of Rome are approaching
Encircled and cornered,
The only way to break out
Is to move towards them, seeking out
The flame which is the butterfly's fate
I stand alone
In this hour
And neither beauty not terror
Will rouse you from your sleep
Save for the woman you deny
As you'll deny the Bar Anash
After a moment's pretence
When he is captured and slandered
And made into Mithras by Rome
But all is prepared
And her hand
Shall not waver
And in a death-like sleep's merciful arms
I too shall rest and be transformed
Before your eyes, like Abraham
Who emerged from the fire unharmed
The sacred poison has been rendered
To blind the eyes of friend and foe
(An enemy soldier corrupted
By one whose love proves true
Will show some small kindness,
Which the brother does not)
You shall see me
And not see
As I take
On my way
The ultimate secret with me
Exiled and occulted
I shall endure half-fulfilled
And my life is a yearning, a knowing,
A waiting
And a calling from far shores
And a longing,
A waiting
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"Like living trees whose deep shade
Would have tempered the storms of the age"
Thank you for sharing this offering, Mahdi. Love, peace, and blessings to you, namaste,
Regis. 🙏