Did you exist in God’s mind from the beginning?
Persisting as light that shined from the beginning?

Prophets spoke secretly of your sacred purpose,
A fate to which you were blind from the beginning.

Shahid told of his longing for wings, of how
The Beloved left him behind from the beginning.

Spells are chanted in the dreams of Trojan generals
That the ghosts of sibyls maligned from the beginning.

A shaman roves catacombs where the holy texts
Of the Masai were enshrined from the beginning.

In the Sahara whirlwinds form on valley floors
Where seething thermals reclined from the beginning.

Do you still dream of God, sheened in the light
Of a star that shined from the beginning?

The sound of waves rushes between the couplets
Of ghazals Shahid refined from the beginning.