A Sweet-faced Saint…

AS OF A GIANT CLOUD

A sweet-faced saint like a giant cloud
floats past the cliff edge where we

stand in wait for such saintly visitation
and he doesn’t disappoint with his fond

nod in our direction and a sidelong glance that
actually lays a stripe of sunlight along the

grassy fields down below as the day rises

We’ve waited here since birth for his passing
and he has in his interior dimension all

previous saintly persons male and
female and even some of the most monumental from

the animal kingdom lions of supreme majesty and
kingfishers of spiritual acumen as well as

compassionate dogs and a white deer
standing forever by a black pool about to

drink into herself all human conflict and
mortal ambiguity

The great cloud moves slowly hair streaming and
barely separate from the atmosphere until we

see only a faint outline of his form in the
air but deep within somewhere in his

middle a rolling sea of coral-colored flame and
flashes of conch-pink light over turquoise waves

into a sunrise unfolding across the world
in everyone’s hearts at once

There is no place that does not see him
and that he doesn’t see

No flotilla nor flatland nor Fortune Five Hundred
that isn’t absorbed into his passing cloud

on his way with our faintest aspirations
toward such singular glory

5/8/2006 (from Coattails of the Saint)

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The outpouring for Imran continues to be astonishing… he touched so many. We can only pray that his fleeting presence among us is a permanent reminder of prophetic behavior… and honor him by acting honorably.

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I’m also adding a just-completed new collage for the cover of a book of ghazals I’m publishing soon insha’Allah…entitled The Flame of Transformation Turns to Light.