A Ramzan Poem

 Tala’a Al-Badru ‘Alayna

(The White Moon Shone Over Us)

A Ramzan Poem

Your radiant face gave light 

And love

And longing

To the heart of God. 

And the heart of God gave light to Be

And so

light was born.

Out of the light of be

The stars and mountains and seas and deserts

And out of the deserts, oases.

And so Medina.

Your radiant face gave light 

And we who were blind ants

Searching for paths through rocks with no caves or veins

Found the flight of butterflies and the rise of the wind

For you gave us freedom

In servitude and liberty in submission 

Plenty in restraint

And you outshone the calendar of the moon

And brought us Ramzan. 

And ramzan sprinkles light over us so that 

In the bazaars and the streets

And the carts outside mosques

Little yellow stars can shine. 

In the bazaar they sell twinkling halos as bangles 

And in the streets the cricket players laugh and fight like solar flares.

And in the street outside the mosque

Someone gives out rotis in your daughter’s name 

Each as round and white as the face of the moon. 

As I walk through the streets of zamzama 

With my sister’s little hand in mine

I think

That the joy that illuminates ramzan nights is 

Nothing but the rays of your radiance shining onto us 

As bright and beautiful as they were 

On the smiling faces of the children of Medina 

Fourteen hundred and forty five years ago.