For the Love of Water

From Paper Poetry ( Blog found via SunniSister):

Water

Dreaming, I awake in a pool of sweat
Reciting ancient stories that shimmer
In fragile water rings
And I immersed, come struggling up for air

Panicking, Hajar returns to find her baby’s fists
Calling blue water from yellow sand
She gathers the fate of the world in her palms

Like Nuh, calling his son from the ark
On arrogant peaks he turns his shoulder
The tide rises; the mountain holds its breath

Or Yusuf in a well, caravan pulling up a rope
Rain falls for 7 years, Earth dries for 7 years
From slave to brother, only one drop crafting fate

Like Musa, walking the wet ocean floor
Two waves, mountain high, paused yet breathing; waiting
Perhaps wondering why they are no longer embracing

Like Mohammad with his hands immersed:
Water flows. Wounded and bloody,
Future martyrs drink with tips of spears in their shoulders
thirst: an enemy in the desert

Like Hud disappointed; great black clouds carry no rain: only wind
Yunus swallowed in the belly of a whale, in the belly of a sea
Iblis from fire, Adam from dripping wet clay, flames grow softer

To Allah, who asks
"We made from water every living thing. Will they not then believe?"
A creation unacquainted with itself
Oblivious to the flow between the veins
Like a fish that does not know water
Until it has tasted air

Like the old man in a mosque
Washing his face, teaching his grandson
Rules of ablution
And life floweth through the palms of his withered hands

Somewhere, an ocean sighs
And foolish I, thought this world was made of something inexplicable