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.
#903 On The Weariness of Becoming
The day gave oxygen, my spirit soared,
I thrived amongst the crowd, alive, awake —
Then came the evening, emptied and ignored,
Too drained to think, too spent for thinking’s sake.
I am a creature made for voices, rooms,
For human warmth and questions, give and take —
Yet every dawn some other sorrow looms,
And every choice another self must break.
The future calls across an unknown sea,
The weekend beckons like a distant shore;
My very human fears I cannot flee,
Though grace and equanimity I swore.
Between the man I am and what’s to be,
The miles of tiredness stretch — and still, I see.
#902 On The Narrowing of the World
We were the ones who would remake the earth,
Whose dreams spread wide as any morning sky —
Each decade stripped another hope of worth,
And still we did not learn to say goodbye.
The novel unbegun, the cause unmade,
The love that asked too much, the road not crossed —
Not slain by fate, but gently, softly frayed,
Until we woke and counted what we’d lost.
Yet here is Dorothea’s quiet art:
To find, within the compass of one day,
The letter written with a generous heart,
The small, ungathered life given away.
No marble tomb, no monument, no name —
The good we do in secret is our fame.
#901 On The Tears that Fall
Tears fall, unashamed —
proof the heart still knows to grieve,
proof it yet lives on.
#898 On The Cusp of Light
The mind is full, the week ahead looms wide,
With voices calling — wife and kin and all —
Yet in this quiet Saturday, I hide,
And let the pen and paper catch my fall.
I’ve chased the world and felt its tightened net,
Served everyone but left myself behind,
A glimmer stirs — not risen fully yet —
A soft and patient easing of the mind.
So let me breathe. Let cafe murmurs be
The gentle hum that loosens what is taut,
And in the hubbub, find that I am free —
Less lonely, more myself, more calmly wrought.
For I have loved, and still can read, and write —
Enough. Today, I’ll trust the coming light.
#896 On Wittgenstein’s Final Years
Today, as I was reading about the final years of Ludwig Wittgenstein, I am reminded that actually we need quite little to truly live on, and what we imagine to be “essential” are actually many times in excess of what we actually truly need.
How have we allowed ourselves to be blinded to such an ungodly degree? Why aren’t we content to live simply by the laws of His decree?
#895 Tentang Fitrah Insani
Kau tak perlu harus selalu sempurna
Ada harinya kau akan merasa terkalah
Merana dalam perasaan marah dan kecewa
Atau murung dalam gelora sedih dan gelisah
Itu semuanya adat kehidupan insani
Kau cuma harus terima takdir seadanya
Bahwa Dia menyaksikan dan menutur kehidupan
Akurlah bahwa kau cuma manusia biasa
Dan akan terus gagal dan gagal dan kemudian bangkit melawan
Itu fitrahmu yang harus kau insafi
Seawalnya kau menerima hakikat ini
Mengawalkan ketenangan jiwa yang kau cari.
#887 Tentang Ramadan dan Pengatasan Diri
Di ambang Ramadan ini
Bertekadlah untuk menjadi lebih baik
Untuk merintis jalan sepi
Lantas meniup seruling gemersik
Yang memanggil pada jiwa yang lebih utuh
Yang menyeru pada hati yang terluruh:
Kau mampu mengatasi diri sendiri
Merajai nafsu kehendak yang penuh iri hati.