Fifty-fifty?

There are people who we are lucky to meet, there are teachers who we are needing to hear, there are friends who we are blessed to have. Salima is all three to me, and the following poems are the results of last night's spiritual osmosis. Half is her's and half is mine? The good part is her's and the bad part is mine, and so it will ever be. Can one bow for a friend?


The Love Song of the Indian Maiden

By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth:
I sought him, but I found him not.
(Song of Solomon, 3, 1)

Memories of him delight my days with matchless wonder, and dreams
Forever enrapture my lonely coach where his head rested on my pillow.
Again my hair becomes his blanket and my mind the echo of his heartbeat,
While I lay my cheek on his chest. How else would I've known the divinity
Of my ear-shell, unless by his touch? He, the redeemer of my lifeless life,
Drove blood in my veins, awoke my budding heart and wrote his presence
In fiery signs on the parchment of my soul, an interlude in his magnitude.
There is no rain without his tears, no sunshine without his smile. The song
Of his voice is like the tabla's golden sweetness, each voice is born by his,
How else could we hear this world? He's the meadow in my love's spring,
He's the river that mirrors the silver moon, my kiss. A giant, nay a God,
Sharing man's fate, unaware of another world than where he walks and is
And that's created by his presence. My life is but a shadow in his dream.
I'd sacrifice it all, I'd give my hands and eyes and soul to grant his wish,
As I love him truthfully, and I love his Love and in his Love is Truth.


Crippled Angels

They tell of crippled angels who worship a second-hand God
In a third class heaven, too close to earth, where broken wings
And tattered gowns are standard. You and I, my leprous friend,
May still pray for salvation, true to ourselves without pretending
We are whole or holy. Yes, my orphaned soul has found its mate
In this swearing drunken beast called man, aspiring as a martyr.
God likes his bawdy song. We'll die alone but will not separate.
In God's dirty third-class heaven we will meet again and wait.
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