Short Poems

Little my lacking fortunes show
For this to eat and that to wear;
Yet laughing, Soul, and gaily go!
An obol pays the Stygian fare.

London, 1910

Thou dost complain of woman for changing from one to another?
Censure her not: for she seeks one who will constant remain.

First of all let us acknowledge God (who is self-evident)
who has made love the worth of the world Sir
It was God Himself that first loved
and the prophet (Muhammad (SW)) is His beloved Sir '

Too well thy weakness have I proved;
Now would I leave thee; - it is time -
Good night! to thee, oh world, good night!
I haste me to my home.

I find it very difficult to enthuse
Over the current news.
Just when you think that at least the outlook is so black that it can grow no blacker, it worsens,
And that is why I do not like the news, because there has never been an era when so many things were going so right for so many of the wrong persons.

(co-written by Sharon Robinson)

Every waking day
a canvas waits for color
paintings of the soul


(Previously published in Poems Md, Apr 2008)

Every sect has a faith, a direction (Qibla) to which they turn,
I have turned my face towards the crooked cap (of Nizamudin Aulia)
The whole world worships something or the other,
Some look for God in Mecca, while some go to Kashi (Banaras) ,
So why can't I, Oh wise people, fall into my beloved's feet?
Every sect has a faith, a Qibla.

Every night I hurry home to see
If a letter's there from you to me.
Every night I bow my head and say,
'There's no word at all from him today.'

Evening wind:
water laps
the heron's legs.


Translated by Robert Hass