Bangga amat pada lencana
Harta jadi ukuran darjat
Tayang bini tayang segala
Tinggi langit tiada teringat
Bila takbur marak memerak
Salak desak makin menggila
Tewas pada nafsu kehendak —
Itu tanda insan teralpa.
#912 On The Road Chosen
The road I chose — where
did it quietly become
someone else’s life?
#911 On What Went Wrong
I watched another take a seat I craved,
And asked what flaw had dimmed my early light —
What forfeit left my gold so long engraved
With someone else’s name, some other’s right.
Was merit not enough, or did I stray
At some unmarked and unreturning turn?
The years grow short; what youth had meant to say
Now smoulders where ambition used to burn.
And yet to rage against the shape of things
Is but to break oneself upon the wheel —
Perhaps each life is measured not by rings
Of office, but by what the quiet feel.
What went wrong? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps all
Was always tending toward a different call.
#910 On A Day Well Lived
Steps counted, dinner
cooked — the body kept its vows,
the evening held still.
What seemed a cliff-face
dissolves into gentle slope,
mist lifts without wind.
Alhamdulillah —
not thunder, just a soft breath,
enough. More than enough.
#909 Tentang Pengadilan Di Penghujung Alam
Resmi alam bersulam duka
Payah getir menguji diri
Tiap pahit ada manisnya
Harus sabar mengharung hari
Usah dinda bermuram sedih
Jangan pula berputus asa
Tuhan Agung Maha Pengasih
Pasti tiba Pengadilan-Nya.
#908 On The Morning Walk
To step outside before the world grows loud,
When air is clean and light is soft and new,
To walk beneath the white of drifting cloud,
And lift the eyes to unencumbered blue —
The neighbour nods, the stranger tips a smile,
Brief graces passed like coins along the street,
And something loosens, mile by easy mile,
The knot that sleep had failed to quite defeat.
The trees stand green and tall in morning light,
Indifferent to our burdens, blessedly so,
They ask for nothing, offer back the sight
Of something rooted, patient, set to grow.
So let the soul be walked back into bloom —
The morning sky, its ever-open room.
#907 On Weariness
Life rushes past me —
I stand still, learning to love,
tired, yet not yet lost.
#906 On Tiredness and the Moral Self
The day has wrung me hollow, dry, and spent,
Yet still I press against the fading light,
While Junayd’s words pursue me where I went:
This dunya’s tribulations are our right.
Around me, souls rush headlong, chasing still
The gilded noise of this world’s passing show,
While I am worn by some ungrasped goodwill,
A gentler self I ache to come to know.
To purge the arrogance that clouds my sight,
To love more truly, humbly, than before —
Such is the labour of the moral night,
The quiet war no battlefield makes sure.
Today I am discouraged, tired, worn —
Yet from such soil is moral goodness born.
#905 On Losing the Role to Find the Self
I grieve the self that hid behind the part —
the careful voice, the grace rehearsed and sure,
the borrowed manner passed itself for art,
the mask so worn I took it for my core.
But shame runs deep beneath the gilded show;
the Void has whispered what I would not hear —
that all this competence conceals the woe
of wounds I dressed in praise year after year.
So let the coming months unmake the frame,
let unbecoming be the work I do;
perhaps I built my roles to dodge my shame,
and called that refuge something that was true.
For what the role withheld, the loss restores —
the self was never built for gilded floors.
#904 On The Blank Spaces in Prayer
At every prayer’s close there waits an empty space,
A line where one beloved name must go —
I write yours there, and try to draw your face,
Though what remains of it, I barely know.
The features blur; I reach for what I knew —
Only your eyes stay vivid, close and clear;
I wonder in the silence if I, too,
Still find a place in all you hold most dear.
Forgive me where I failed, as I forgive —
Though how the heart was shattered, I recall;
Today I gather up the shards and live,
And reassemble, odd-shaped pieces, all.
Perhaps my fears have made a liar of me —
And love endures, as steadfast as the sea.