Welcome Me, My Lord Poem by Mystic Qalandar

Welcome me, my Lord,
as I turn, trembling,
toward the horizon of Your Essence.
O Maker of forms that rise and fall,
drive from me this shadow called "I."

I am not ready
to enter the ocean of Your presence;
yet a self persists apart from You,
a mirror reflecting separation.

Your dwelling stretches beyond all knowing;
I remain dust at its threshold.
I feel Your whispering arms
drawing me toward baqabillah;
yet my ego clings—
O dissolve it utterly,
that I may vanish within Your embrace.

Nearness was mine
on the day of Alast,
but wandering has veiled my vision.
I have learned,
yet learning falls short of knowing;
cleanse my ignorance, heedlessness,
illusions, veils of thought—
burn them all in the fire of Your light.

O Friend of the Hidden,
Your warmth surrounds me,
yet I am not unveiled.
Remove the last trace of otherness,
so the soul may recognize its origin.

Indeed, You are the refuge
to which all return;
yet to enter wholly,
my otherness must dissolve,
as horizons vanish in the dawn.

I am not yet ready
to dwell in the truth as I once did.
My Creator, my Lord, Hidden, Manifest;
I have wandered the wilderness
of forms and shadows.

Grant me revelation,
that I may rise in Your skies
and shatter the cage of illusion.

You are higher than life;
when I fall,
Your unseen yet real arms
catch me in eternal certainty.

Show me Your way,
yet let the door remain closed
until I pass as nothing,
as Your shadow,
into the home where coming and going cease.

Until then
I play in the garden of illusion—
knowing departure and return
are the dance of duality.

All along, I have been home,
yet ego deceives and heart forgets.
I see the truth that welcomes, O Hidden One,
but unveil me to Your Oneness—
after the purification of my nafs,
after the sanctification of my qalb.

—September 9,2025