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IWA
Poetry Corner...
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2006 Poetry Contest
Winner, Adult Category, IWA member
Muhammad
By
Karen English
Muhammad
They kept his name from us,
swaddled it in cotton,
tied it in a box,
buried that box deep in the earth.
Away from our eyes,
so tightly the secret of his name was kept.
But then something nudged us
A germ of distant memory,
a single grain at first|
With times breath fanning it more into life
---slowly---
as a morning dawning.
What was it? What was it?
Know your God is One?
Fall down in adoration
of that One?
We remembered--
those who came before us
on angry seas,
faces pressed to the ship’s deck,
over and over.
Why?
We remembered---
our grandmothers
before the sun rose
faces pressed the cabin’s dirt floor.
Why?
Still, they kept his name from us.
Muhammad.
Obscured his message,
tried to extinguish his truth
not knowing the seed was already
buried deep in the soil of our souls.
It had traveled with us,
was destined to perfectly grow.
Until, ---one by one,
ten by ten,
hundreds by hundreds,
thousands upon thousands---
we would bear witness to Muhammad’s Message:
Know that your God is One
and there is no God but He.
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The
Islamic Writers Alliance