“Sonnet in Honour of the Feast of `Izzat’ or ‘Might’”

Bahá’ís throughout the world gather tonight and tomorrow within the First Day of the Month of `Izzat [Might]

“Sonnet in Honour of the Feast of `Izzat’

or ‘Might’”

Judge well, judge fairly, judge the might of any man,
Salutations there above it all, crowned, a name become a lyric,
A word in apposition to all legend; manipulated Pyrrhic
Hero, all ears offending, bending, ciphers in the sand,
Commanding others in a fleeting circumstance with undisputed fame
And powers granted for the sake of a specific hour, perhaps a day, gone,
Fossilised before the melody has reached the page when so easily as on
A clouded noxious day, his specious honour clots, his reign
Is turned to vapours. What remains of yesterday’s effaced from buildings,
as from his body, plaudits once ubiquitous, become but shadows of the sun,
A nothingness distilled from arbitrary fruits of moot achievement
here and there among the shades. No lasting shame nor is there blame,
No action, bold distraction, no final satisfaction spent upon itself in vain
From first to last is parsed so long as youth and strength sustain his every run
Through forgeries and fortunes. Judge this man when he is in the deepest well,
And buried sees his heaven while he knows he lives in hell.

“Someone Questions”

“Someone Questions”

Someone questions; in the soul who asks
A sense of limitless flight, as in a light cast against
A cosmic scrim, a naked form made indisposed, concupiscence
So well hedged in that even snakes and asps
Imagine kingdoms, place and calling. One seeks
Solace in the stars drawn loosely in the dawn in meadows where the lark
And scissortail fly with grace and prudence safe within the dark
And moonlit bosom of the either side of night. These may speak
In early evening mists as harbingers of loss or sparks for yet another day
For both are lost at first appearances of the other’s prescient rights.
Someone asks too many questions, standing stupid in astonishment–the slights
To similitude and approbation of the sun and blessings of the moon–
And while away their twilight hours in repetitious casting of the bones and runes,
Hers the scarlet crystals, his the blue,
Placated in the midnight for a time. Softly moving, flowing purples
Prove a longing in the hurried bower. Serried sentiments, interpreted
In their yearning  by a greater sight, a gilded purity, requests to know
A deeper joy in stations far above their own come as strident yellows,
Richest apricots, stealth in forest greens, and in their mirrors’ prisms others
In the rainbow’s richest hues. Truculence and degradation spawn another
Third, a half note difference that in the hour makes no sense. These fellow
Travellers pause but moments in this place and for all intents
And purposes yield to what they think has come pass. Conclusions
Mount in efforts to remember who it was did this to whom. Confusion
Circumvents the purpose of reunion when their synergies, delayed, are bent,
Distorting content, vanities and what they both have willed:
A blindness in the heart and mind and precious certitude is stilled.