Salāt

Salāt. 

Gold spills across the sky in ribbons

And the muezzin calls for prayer,

The sound ringing across the mosque into the city square—

Into the ears of one tired man

Who unrolls his prayer mat towards the holy city,

Bows before his god and prays along with the rest of the 

Muslamic humanity. 

Salāt. 

It is sweltering already and the call comes again; 

Again he kneels and bows on the prayer mat.

There are indentations where he has knelt all his life,

Declaring there is no one like his god but Allah. 

Salāt. 

It is mid afternoon and the pigeons are taking naps

In the eaves and rafters. 

The man prostrates himself before his god—

He is still quite young, he has a wife

And one son. 

He does not wonder if this prayer is the truth;

This is a ritual of worship and why stop doing what you do?

His father and his grandfather and all his ancestors—

They were devout and so will he be. 

Salāt. 

The sun has kissed the horizon;

Sank below the river. 

He empties his mind and stands, kneels, and bows his head 

Towards Mecca. 

The edges of the mat are frayed.

His son copies him, a solemn two year old;

He will make his pilgrimage to Mecca when he is twenty-four 

And he will not come back alive.  

Salāt. 

It is the last prayer of the day. 

The clouds have covered the sky, but within the city

Thousands of lights shine into the night. 

It is a tired city, and in one of the lighted houses,

One tired man unrolls his prayer mat and bows before his god. 

He will die of grief and finally rest in the earth,

And will he have met his god,

And will he have the answers for all his questions?

Linda Peachey, 2022