K. HASSAN
To Attar
I.
I wandered a waste as vast as God’s own wrath,
Where lightning’s fire forged a path of jagged glass.
No name adorned my lips, no star to guide my track,
Only the sand’s soft hiss and the heavens’ boundless lack.
The dunes stretched endless, a mirror of divine disdain,
Each grain a shard of time, each gust a whispered pain.
My feet bled on the glass, yet left no lasting trace,
My shadow drowned in light, my soul a barren space.
Uncounted years slipped by like ghosts through riven veils,
I drank the sun’s red rust, I breathed the desert’s gales.
My hands, once sworn to oaths, now clutched at empty air,
Forgotten by kin, by cause, by the gods who lingered there.
A Magus stripped of flame, cast from the sacred pyre,
My robe was woven grief, my staff a splintered spire.
My compass lay in ruins where all paths bled to none,
And silence sang a hymn beneath the unrelenting sun.
II.
They spoke of two doors carved for the hearts of men:
The mosque, where law burns bright with heaven’s holy flame,
The tavern, where lost souls drown their shame in sin.
I stood at their thresholds, a wanderer without name.
The mosque’s tall gates repelled me, my breath too wild for creed,
Its minarets cast shadows that mocked my heart’s raw need.
The tavern’s raucous laughter spurned my tears’ frail disguise,
Its drunken saints recoiled from the truth within my eyes.
You are cold, they hissed, your longing’s stained with guile.
Your tears are false, your soul a storm too fierce, too wild.
No path remains but dust, no altar holds your trust—
You are exiled from exile, a ghost ground down to rust.
I lingered in the twilight, on glass that cut my feet,
My heart a broken vessel where no gods deigned to meet.
The stars above were silent, their light a distant scorn,
Yet still I walked the jagged path, where no new dawn was born.
III.
But is there not, O heart, some road beyond these poles?
A hidden gate where thirst alone consoles the soul?
Not the mosque’s stern chant, nor the tavern’s reckless sigh,
But a trail unwalked where jagged glass reflects the sky?
I stepped through formless air, led by hunger’s primal call,
Not faith’s cold hand, nor folly’s, but a pulse that burned through all.
The sands began to tremble, the sun paled to ash and gray,
A whisper rose like mist where the desert’s silence lay:
Beyond the cup’s sweet dregs, beyond the prayer’s thin thread,
A city sleeps in shadow where no mortal feet have tread.
Not shaped by hands of clay, nor bound by mortal name—
Seek it, O wanderer, and rise from the ash of shame.
I followed that faint echo, through dunes that heaved and sighed,
Each step a wound on glassy shards, each breath a truth denied.
The wind became my compass, its wail my only guide,
Its voice a woven requiem along that fractured tide.
IV.
From the horizon’s wound, where light bled into dream,
A dome arose—not gold, not stone, but a radiant seam.
A minaret of memory, carved from the heart’s lost scream,
Its spire a hymn of longing no mortal tongue could deem.
No gate stood guard, no wall defined its sacred bound,
Yet it rose from the earth’s deep ache, where chaos’ roots were found.
Dust fell always, soft as grief, a veil that cloaked the air,
Each grain a fleeting scripture, a sigh of ancient prayer.
I passed through no stone threshold, yet entered truth’s embrace,
The city was my forsaking, the mirror of my face.
Its streets were veins of silence, where dust forever fell,
A shroud of timeless sorrow, a hymn no voice could tell.
Its towers pulsed with bone and flame, yet dust was their attire,
A falling, endless curtain woven from the heart’s desire.
No name could hold its essence, no creed could claim its light,
Yet it sang through wind and ruin, through the marrow of the night.
I walked its boundless alleys, where shadows wove with flame,
Each step a revelation, each breath a buried name.
The city was no citadel, no fortress wrought by men,
But a living wound of wonder, where dust falls without end.
V.
There, figures moved like smoke through dust that ever fell,
Their names a fleeting art, their forms a shadowed spell.
The Laughing Judge, whose verdicts split the heavens’ beating heart,
The Blinded Priest, whose prayers burned through the dust’s soft art,
The Queen of Plume, whose words bore stars through dust’s eternal veil,
Each step a dance with falling grains, each breath a ghostly tale.
Their tongues spoke riddles ancient, too vast for mortal breath,
Their eyes held truths that shimmered where dust and death enmeshed.
The Imam poured wine like rivers, through dust that cloaked the tides,
The Vintner read the Qur’an backward, where dust’s own truth resides.
The Librarian wept softly, her tears lost in falling dust,
O’er jars where meanings shattered, their shards now ground to rust.
We Magi were uncounted, yet each a solitary spark,
Not worshipers of fire, but fire’s own pulse in the dark.
Within us burned an ember, through dust that veiled the soul,
A flame that spoke in silence, where falling grains made whole.
I sat among their shadows, their voices wove my own,
Each word a thread of starlight, each sigh a dust-kissed stone.
VI.
Through arches bent like crescent moons, where dust fell soft as rain,
A damsel stood beneath a fig, her voice a fragile strain.
“Oh Wanderer,” she whispered, her breath a woven flame,
“Have you lost the way to home, or found its hidden name?
Does your heart still roam the wastes where glass paths cut the skies,
Or is it rooted here, where dust and dream entwine?”
Her eyes were moons unshackled, through dust’s eternal fall,
Holding all the years I’d wandered, each wound, each fleeting call.
“Home is not a harbor,” she said, “nor a wall of stone,
But a flame you carry inward, a path you walk alone.”
She pointed to the sand’s soft script, where dust fell etched with fire,
Each grain a tale of longing, each spark a soul’s desire.
“Become the flame you seek,” she urged, her voice a sacred pyre,
“And rise, O Magus, from the ash of all you once desired.”
Her words were mirrors gleaming through dust that veiled the air,
Her breath a living coal that burned where falling dust was prayer.
Igniting in my chest a spark that pierced the endless fall,
A flame to light the city, where dust entombed it all.
VII.
I saw then: mosque and tavern are but masks upon the void,
Mirrors facing mirrors, where truth is oft destroyed.
They offer fleeting shelter, yet neither dares to see
The soul’s unspoken forge, where dust falls endlessly.
This city—this forbidden realm—holds no law, yet knows my pain,
No altar, yet its silence, through falling dust, sustains.
No God stands crowned above it, yet divinity breathes near,
In dust that falls like sacred ash, This is the soul’s frontier.
Not chained by creed’s cold iron, nor torn by doubt’s sharp blade,
It cradles light and shadow where dust’s soft veil is laid.
A temple woven of breath, where dust falls as a psalm,
Where the dead confess their secrets in the falling dust’s calm.
I knelt within its silence, my heart a broken bell,
Its chime a hymn of fracture, where dust in quiet fell.
The city was my mirror, my wound, my endless sea,
Its tides the pulse of longing, cloaked in dust’s eternity.
VIII.
Yet still I walked its labyrinth, where dust fell without cease,
Each step a shedding of the self, each breath a truth’s release.
The dunes within its borders sang, through dust’s unyielding rain,
Of lovers lost to starlight, of words that bore their pain.
The city held no scripture, yet its stones, with dust adorned,
Bore cracks of sacred sorrow, where falling grains were mourned.
I saw my mother’s shadow, her hands dust-veiled and still,
I saw my father’s silence, his eyes of buried will.
The children I had never borne sang softly through the dust,
Their laughter wove the arches where the city’s heart was thrust.
And still the dust kept falling, revealing lives unknown,
Each grain a fleeting story, each gust a spirit sown.
I lingered in their chorus, their voices wove my own,
A tapestry of longing, through dust’s eternal throne.
IX.
The city spoke in visions, through dust that burned too bright,
Of oceans trapped in teardrops, of stars that drowned in night.
It showed me wars unspoken, where dust fell thick with pain,
It showed me peace unyielding, where dust fell soft as rain.
I saw the hands that built the world, then tore it stone by stone,
Their dust now falling ever, where no gods’ names were known.
I saw the hearts that loved too fiercely, then wandered all alone,
Their echoes caught in falling dust, their cries a muted tone.
The city held their relics, their triumphs and their cries,
Its walls a living palimpsest beneath unyielding skies.
I walked until my feet were dust, my blood a desert stream,
Yet still the city called me, its dust my waking dream.
It was no place of endings, no haven built to last,
But a flame through falling dust, a present forged from past.
X.
Now I walked again, the Sahara vast and cruel,
Its dunes a sea of fire beneath a path of glassy rule.
And there, an unbelievable sight, a vision to confound—
A trail of people followed me, their cries a piercing sound.
“Save us, Lord!” they wailed, their voices torn by grief,
Each sob a shard of anguish, each plea a heart’s belief.
Their forms were faint as starlight, yet heavy with despair,
Their faces etched with centuries, their eyes a burning prayer.
They stretched across the desert, a river of lost souls,
Their hands reached out to grasp the spark my wandering heart consoles.
I turned, my soul a furnace, yet chilled by doubt’s sharp sting—
Who was I, a Magus frail, to bear such sacred spring?
No lord was I, no savior crowned, yet their cries would not relent,
Each “Save us, Lord!” a hammer blow, each tear a sacrament.
Their sorrow wove a mantle, of ash and light entwined,
And I, their reluctant beacon, bore the flame they sought to find.
The city pulsed within me, its dust their guiding star,
Its silence louder than their cries, its fire their hope afar.
XI.
Yet still I walked, now carrying their pleas within my breast,
The city’s ember glowing, where dust had found its rest.
No mosque’s call could bind me, no tavern’s cup could drown,
For I had seen the face that burns where all veils tumble down.
The desert’s wail still haunted, its voice a lover’s plea,
Yet I no longer bent to it—I was the fire set free.
My prayer was not in words, but in the hush where dust descends,
Where light and shadow mingle, where time’s own arc unbends.
If asked, “What faith is yours?” I’d answer with a sign:
The fire, the dust, the wandering spark, the endless wandering divine.
The city waited, veiled beneath the sand’s eternal fall,
For those too wild to linger, too frail to heed the call.
Not mosque, not tavern, not creed’s cold throne, nor dome’s unyielding span—
But silence that whispered softly: You are already home.
XII.
I walk, and still the desert stretches vast before my gaze,
Its dunes a map of longing, where glass paths carve the days.
Each step a prayer unspoken, each breath a sacred vow,
To carry forth the city’s light, where dust is burning now.
The stars may fade to silence, above a path of glassy lore,
Yet still the city’s embers, through falling dust, endure.
For I am both the wanderer and the path that I must tread,
The flame that lights the darkness, the dust where dreams are fed.
And if the world should ask me, “What truth have you to share?”
I’ll point to the horizon, where dust is breath and air.
For there, beneath the sand’s soft weight, where dust falls evermore,
The soul finds home in wandering, and names it as its shore.
SAHARA , 1997
