Calligraphy

 

I am grateful

for the Muslim mathematicians

who invented algebra

(an Arabic word),

and drew the first zero
(another Arabic word)

whose radiant emptiness

exalts what preceeds
even the One.
And I am grateful

for Mansoor al Hallaj

who was tortured and burned

at the stake for ecstatically

humming the mantra,

"Ana'l Haqq! I Am Truth!"

bestowed on him by Shams,

the Guru of Rumi.

I am grateful as well

for the humble nameless

artist of Isfahan

who wrote the entire

Qu'ran on a bird's egg

using for his brush a single

whisker from a newborn goat.

Yet how much more do I
give thanks to you, dear friend,

who with your gently

centered hairpin breath

pierced the shell

to suck out the unknown,

and then, through your most

delicate exhalation,

inscribed all 114 Suras 

along with many other chapters

not yet revealed
(O calligraphy 

of illuminated nights,

O innumerable constellations,

sacred beasts of darkness

hurtling toward us to be born!) 

yes, inscribed them here,

on the inside of the egg!

I dreamed this poem, and I still cannot quite convey its meaning. So I will simply tell you the dream. I went to sleep in extreme anxiety about the world, yet at the end of the dream, I awoke in ecstasy.

 

I was a captain in U.S. Army Intelligence, sitting across the table in a dangerous game with someone holding an egg that had the entire Qu'ran inscribed on its shell. Very fragile. The world depended on not dropping and shattering it. I held out my hand to catch the egg, daring the other player to throw it. I knew the world's fate would rest on this delicate but desperate throw. He tossed the egg and I caught it gingerly. Then I knew what I had to do, but not why.

I had to inhale the uncreated unborn emptiness inside the egg, through a tiny hole at the top, then blow my breath back into it. I performed this delicate task gently yet quickly with a fierce, fine, focused exhalation. And with that breath, the whole scripture suddenly appeared INSIDE the egg, glittering like the dome of a great mosque, radiant with the stars and galaxies.

The egg did not shatter, the world was not destroyed. I awoke in great joy and it was clear then that all our scriptures - the Torah, the Vedas, the Qu'ran - are dangerous and heavy when they are inscribed on the outside. But when we breathe the holy Word inside, allowing its law be inscribed on our hearts, earth is refreshed, and becomes a paradise.