My child, grow as you would hope to be.
I am here, washing the dirty linen
and the soiled clothes thinking of you.
Who can tell? That the world in the future,
its circumstances be better. But I pray
that you may have the strength to face
each day with courage and dignity-
of choosing what is true and honest.
Defending what is right over wrong,
uncompromising to the virtues that I
am going to teach you. Please listen.
I am not the best and I am not perfect.
And I dream for you my child, a life anew.
Realizing the chance to fulfill the purposes
destined for you. Keeping steer of the pitfalls
I have done. Make a difference of your own.
Striving the very best that you can.
Standing up for what you believe in.
Though you may fall, there will always be
a chance to pick yourself up, to stand again.
Never quit. Never fear. God be with you.
And I hope you learn from my mistakes.
The misjudgment I did when I was
once a child like you. Growing up too.
Through my adulthood, deciding to love
another being and brought you along
amidst the pain, the hurt and the turmoil.
May it be- your life like these soap suds
clearing away the dirty traces of my past,
vanishing all the fears that I had before.
Starting the days wearing clean clothes.
The Trader
Posted in Architecture & Design, Books, Current Affairs, Film, Literature, Philosophy, Poetry, Politics, Social Commentary, Society, Travel, Uncategorized, tagged Africa, ancestor, ancient, antiquity, anxiety, appear, brick, brittle, call, caravan, cigarette, city, clay, collection, constant, cushion, desert, down, dry, escape, excavation, face, faded, flood, fragile, fragment, glass, glow, gold, house, ink, landscape, leave, light, linen, living, mangle, manuscript, map, maze, mind, modest, money, mosque, mud, mull, page, parchment, passerby, past, poem, poetry, prayer, puff, reading, riverbank, ruins, salt, sand, scribbling, seams, season, sell, sheaf, signal, smoke, snake, social commentary, tourist, trade, trouble, turban, unfurl, wait, wall, weather, wilderness, wind, world, years, yellow on January 8, 2011| 16 Comments »
His face is a map of caravan years,
weathering the desert sun and
the seasonal flood by the riverbank
which brings in salt for a modest living.
As the sand windblown and collected
in the seams of his linen turban,
anxiety constantly snake through
the mazes of his troubled mind.
He needed money.
Like how the puff of smokes
from his cigarette escapes
are fragments of his ancestor’s past
excavated from walls of antiquity.
He is mulling to leave the landscape
of ancient ruins, the mud-dried bricks
and clayed houses and desert wilderness
for the glowing lights of the city.
The mosque signals the call to prayer
and he sat down on his cushion
unfurling a sheaf of parchment,
reading through his mangled glasses
the fragile scribbling of faded ink.
On its brittle yellowing pages appears
like gold. This manuscript he wants to sell
to tourists he is waiting to pass by.
Read Full Post »