First came a strong wind,
rippin' off rooftops like bottlecaps
and bending lamp posts down in the ground.
then came a thunder shattering my windows
but you were not that strong wind or that might sound
You left the bar in shambles,
the rabbit hutch in ruins,
the split-rail fence splintered and the curtains torn.
all the cows out from the pastures trampling of the pumpkins
and the horses from their stable ambling in the corn
[foreign language chanting:]
Isa ruhu-lah 'alaihis-salat was-salam
I've flown unnoticed just behind you like an insect
And I've watched you like a falcon from a distance as you pa**ed.
then swooped down to be nearer, to the traces of the footsteps
to pick the fallen grain from the dirt beneath the crooked gra**.
And I'm gonna take that grain and I'm gonna crush it all together
into the flour of a bread as small and simple and sincere.
as when the dryness and the rain finally drink from one another
the gentle cup of mutually surrendered tears!
A fish swims through the sea
while the sea is in a certain sense,
contained within the fish!
Oh, what am I to think
of what the writing of a thousand lifetimes
could not explain
if all the forest trees were pens
and all the oceans - ink?
[more foreign language chants:]
nastagh-firuka ya Hokan
ya Dhal-Jalah wal-Ikram
Isa ruhu-lah 'alaihis-salat was-salam
ya Halim, ya Qahhar
ya Muntaqim, ya Ghaffar!
la Ilaha ilallahu, Allahu Akbar!