Walking The Walk

(feeling Sheikh Hassan of Nablus)

Friends, I'll tell you –
there are days and there are moments
when I don't know who I am.
When on the intake and the outake
of one breath after another,
I hear distant cymbals and a drum –
and the vast space within me,
mad and sovereign, intones a heady chorus
of God is Alive, He is Everywhere Now.

Friends, let me confess –
there are days and there are moments
without a nickle in my pocket.
When one leg walks and the other leg walks,
and the left says allah-hayy, da'im-hu,
and the other leg likewise,
with a stride and a knowledge
of the truth and the reality of this,
with this mad love toward you and you and you
sharpening my glance:
and this heart – this heart abreast
with every heart which comes to mind,
beats with a power half my age.
There is fear toward no one, nor cold in winter,
only sovereign, only sovereign love and joy,
moving and beating with every step, peace
with every thought, with every breath -
there is no religion in it, only faith.

Friends, coursing through my arms and
into my hands and my fingertips
is this dhikr, this hadhrat, this focused adoration!
Neither do I own it nor am I entranced,
it is as natural as holding this cat purring
or driving to my patients or getting the groceries.
It's the balm addressed in my dream in the open field
that night nearly four decades hence, the balm
for suffering humankind.

It holds the atoms together and blesses,
it commands and it radiates the desire
for your well-being and anyone else's.
Friends!  Walking the Walk of the Beloved,
you pick up only the Beloved's scent.