Under My Master Rajab, The Boatman Poem by Mystic Qalandar

I arrived at the floating isle,
my heart a wilderness of forgotten prayers,
tears trembling like dew at dawn's rim—
for I had lost the sacred vow,
the pledge whispered before time,
misplaced in the shadows of faltering steps.

Rajab's eyes met mine—lanterns of patient fire—
their depths a mercy braided with light.
He spoke no words,
yet in a silence deeper than night
a breathless zikr stirred within my ribs,
lifting the burden of forgetting,
awakening a pulse inside stillness.

I sat, immersed in breath and heartbeat,
hours melting into golden radiance,
questions dissolving like mist—
a thousand threads of doubt
unraveling in a grace beyond naming.

"Is this my doing? " I asked
the quiet flame within.
"No, " came the gentlest reply,
"you offer the effort—
but the miracle flowers in unseen fire,
the oil pressed and burning
from faith's hidden kernel."

He laid before me walnuts and almonds.
I cracked their shells—
beneath, the kernel pressed to oil,
the oil kindled into flame.
Thus must prayer be lived, not spoken—
ignited, consumed,
burning through every layer of the self.

In Rajab's silence, I found a new home.
My questions melted,
my heart grew luminous—
not by striving alone,
but by a love pure and formless,
an eternal light,
always my essence quietly waiting
in the folds of remembrance,
where dawn cannot reach.

Yet I walk now
toward the infinite.

—November,26,2025