What Does It Mean to Be a Muslim Writer?: What Does It Mean to Be a Muslim Writer?

Two Poems

The silkworm warms the dragon’s tail scaled golden.

The Strangest of the Pilgrims are Companions

The silkworm warms the dragon’s tail scaled golden.

A mirror wears the silkworm’s veil, invisible tonight.

The worm-wrapped thread exhales upon the golden.

The bearded dragon’s silken sail, invisible tonight.

Reflected in a mirror, silkworm changes

Faith before it falters, fails, invisible tonight.

The pious dragon serpentine sees through a looking glass.

The mirror reads the dragon’s tale, invisible tonight.

The dragon’s eyes cross past the mirrored surface,

Alliance with the glass prevails, invisible tonight.

The veil’s the thing that knots life to illusion.

See nothing as it truly is; the truth is frail, invisible tonight.

We hide in script revealed in distant centuries.

Mirror, dragon, worm and I slip off the trail, invisible tonight.


Salaat Al-Maghrib

Handle’s not the axe

Knob is not the door

Iris in a garden

Carpet on the floor

Wood split stacked and dry

Hinges swing the door

Winter in the land

Forehead to the floor

Fire warms the heart

Walk into a room

Pupil of the eye

Compass pointing true

Steel the sharpened blade

Mindful of misuse

Iris of the eye

Colour of the fuse

Light the wick tonight

Oil lamp’s fragrant cues

Shadow in the garden

Fallow winter view

Handle’s not the hand

Hand is not the door

Iris not the eye

Carpet on the floor

 

About the author

Fred Pond lives in Concord, NC. A convert to Islam in 1979, he has retired from careers as soldier and nurse, and now writes most mornings. This is his first publication.