A Few Observations, Sacred Illuminations Poem by Mystic Qalandar

Loose, loose —
Thornless, thornless —
Silent, silent, silent —

A few observations — sacred illuminations —
that open like a balm
not into wounds already formed,
but into the very possibility of a wound.

How will the knot be undone?
Who will stand at its centre —
the incomplete witness of the universal self,
or that eye which, beholding itself,
goes blind?

Is my mind the messenger of the Preserved Tablet,
or merely a point lost in rotation —
that point which once drew a circle
and forgot it had moved?

The crowd of faces and names — like pilgrims —
is this epiphany,
or the punishment of remembering:
a veil within a veil?

Loose, loose —
Thornless, thornless —
Silent, silent, silent —

A few observations — sacred illuminations —
that open like a balm
where nothing is wounded
except the borrowed state of presence.

Gentle strategies, upright deeds,
silent mercies — and just like that,
atonements and offerings
rendered for a lifetime.

Rising from the deep cell of darkness
like incense —
smoke that gives form to something
before releasing its own form.

Is my self becoming the lamp —
or is the lamp the one
that takes the self
to be a ray of the Divine?

Am I ready
to watch old debts
breathe into ash —
to watch the ash breathe,
and the breath before the ash?

Suddenly, morning —
why has it descended into my bones?
Was that morning also the night inside me?

Loose, loose —
Thornless, thornless —
Silent, silent, silent —

A few observations — sacred illuminations —
that open like a balm
upon a wound
that was never even inflicted.

— MyKoul