Poetry for Palestine

My hajj experience:

Humbled by the sheer number of people, their dedication, sincerity, and longing, enriched by the rainbow of eager fervent faces celebrating the entire humanity, empowered by an invisible bond of spiritual brotherhood, love, and togetherness; all in a state of total devotion, adoration and gratitude to The One Most Loving Creator.

Stunned, I froze.

 Everything else froze with me.

I wanted to capture every face, happy or sad, to save every smile and frown. I wanted to hold every heart with all its joys and sorrows to wrap it up warm and bury it deep in mine. I wanted to whisper to every soul therein of waves of love, prayers, and gratitude that overwhelmed me.

Feelings! What can I say about feelings in such a place? Fondness with absolute submission, elation with total humility, euphoria with utter serenity, weakness with boundless vigour, despair with endless hope, yearning with eternal contentment;  permanently travelling constantly arriving, all pilgrims floating in their own orbits in a peaceful august harmony, chanting their prayers, whispers of unspoken words, songs of silent sighs, transforming the ambience into one of stillness and tranquillity, revealing numinous music with majestic melodies, magnetic tunes, and enormous magnitude that charged the atmosphere, hypnotizing you into a gentle unfathomable daze.

The bond gets stronger and stronger as you start blending into the background of a magnificent masterpiece, diminishing into nothingness, as you experience being one with the whole that there is. You are an atom spinning passionately with the totality of the universe. The macro, the micro and all in between are in a state of oneness that I’ve never sensed with this depth, scale or intensity. Mind dazzling, heart capturing and awe inspiring experience.

Engulfed in mystical mist of love, compassion and mercy that I’ve never felt before, and like all who’re around me I could find nothing but tears streaming down to tell of my joy.

Time lapsed, motion collapsed, and all anguish relapsed as I drank ecstasy and tasted infinity.

Deluded

I thought I could sing before

Why can’t I hear my voice today?

I thought I could paint and write poems

I thought I was articulate

I could bend, shape and wave words

Like a dough, with ease

To speak of I want and plait my story

Where are my words now?

Why can’t I find them?

To tell of how I felt and what I saw

I thought I could write before

How wrong I was

My words are diminishing

Crumbling

Melting like a July snowman

A flock of dears – foreseeing an earthquake- running away

Dry autumn leaves dropping

Scattered in a stormy day

How can I construct my sentences when my dictionary is blank?

How can I?

Ashamed of their flaws

Fearful of their impotence

All escaped

And words are no more

For how can they describe the indescribable?

As the universe stops revolving

And falls into stillness

Faints into nothingness

Fades into silence

In the presence of

The Sublime

17 January 2007

© Copyright 2006 Nahida Izzat -PoetryforPalestine – All Rights Reserved