1. Winter Haiku
Winter’s on its way.
Maple leaves all
cross the street together.
2. Recognition
The same God Who sent the prophets
And inspired the Qur’an
has me work at a job I hate
then come home and wash the dishes
3. Infinite Sadness
I want to express infinite sadness.
How should I go about it?
Should I dip a whole life’s tragedy
like a big spoon through the
roof of their house and pull up
the last of the survivors? The lone
child with big eyes, the good-hearted
grandmother?
Should I wait until after midnight and
stand on a seashore somewhere
face to the black night sucking up
volumes of black sea? Or just
stand on a street corner as the waters of the
ocean of human life go down to the
sea bottom where wrecks of
homeless people on steam grates lie?
The thief who takes a few pieces of
disposable junk rather than
the rajah’s pearl, a
killer who takes the whole beating heart of a
life for no good reason and
so throws his own life down a brink that
yawns so wide it actually
encompasses part of our lives as well.
Lace from a ripped bodice, splattered with
blood.
Hair in bunches, torn out.
Empty buildings, their windows
blown out.
Lives, still walking, their spirits like
old candles
blown out.
I want to play a low harp note
that will be heard far and wide.
The waters of the heart
felt in the sidelong angles of the
chest, corners
where tears don’t reach, where words
hardly come.
That touches us all.
An ache in the body
that doesn’t leave us.
Heartache.
Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore, The Blind Beekeeper
