O Fires! Poem by Sayed Gouda

You stand at the door gate,
like a sparrow in the evening,
waiting for its morning's partner to return.
i see in your eyes the waiting of grass for the rain
that travels from Allah's sky to the virgin earth.
i see you at the door gate,
waiting for my heart to enter,
quiet,
for flowers are asleep in their pots.
Time is a mean lantern on the road.
My soul sleeps on the stairs of the beloved,
not departing or arriving,
not straying or returning.
A cat comes,
licks the sorrows of my heart;
cloaks itself with darkness,
and nothing i see but two green flames.
i collect wood of longing,
and kindle fires in my heart
to grow like the magus fire.
i feed it with wood on which i lie:
O fire! be hungry, consume me.
In me is what you need of wood.
In you, i am if i perish.
i change the skin of my heart every day
to feel my burning every day,
to return the residue of my longing's cinder
to ember every day.
If only the flood had not come on time this year;
if only you, fires, had been bigger than the world's water;
if only the universe had been quiet except for your sizzle
in the silent nights
that listen to the beats of your heart.
O fires!
If only you had not cooled down
like the fire of others!

12 September 2010