Write You

“Every song the heart should cry with magnificent dignity
to know itself as
God” — Khwāja Shams-ud-Dīn Muḥammad Ḥāfeẓ-e Shīrāzī

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I wanted to write you a love note.

To remind you of all the joy in the world,
to remind you that there is hope still
for goodness and courage and fellowship,
way out here on the famished road,
hot and dusty and the sky so far away.

I wanted to write you something full,
like a child who dips his hands
into small puddles and runs back to you,
breathless, shoving them far above
his head, looking up in great anticipation
and telling you, between giggles, to see
how the water streaking down his arms
holds whatever looks at it
and then lets it go.

To remind you that god is in the rain,
and what it meant to spend summer
watching highveld thunderstorms.

I wanted to write you:
awake,
come sing with us
about the curves in the world,
and our capacity for love
and the clear-sightedness of children
and the roots of compassion
and the chorus of a single heart
all caught up in the chaos,
still calm at the centre.

Traces

Now that you’re here

Hold my hand just one more time

Because stories connect