Fabrics of Life

Tough thousand years have come and fled
Can keep my balance and manage not to fall
Am thousand years old, yet am young
Silent but with much to say

In tales of old we are told of a magic spring indeed
Between us many an ocean do you keep,
When I cross one, the next one is more deep
I hear a drop of water in the ocean vast

Life goes to dust, and dust becomes alive
Something must die for something else to live
Was first something, then became something else
Is death, I wonder, or is life the primal law?

Spring came with smiles and found me full of woe
Spring called my name but I refused to hear
Spring lay its flowers and turned away to go
What flowers do for a man and his bier

In my heart I sense a black dot
Soft music shimmering like a blue lagoon
Shining disk of sun that grows without a tree
Beautiful things of which we read

I know of eyes that give beauty to a place
I looked up at the stars on earth I walked
I recommend flowers and moonlight
Why then do men live such a life of misery?

I watched from earth and on a distant star
I sat in space and watched it from afar
I saw no difference between land and sea
Pain and joy looked the same to me

Summer night, company and jasmine festoon
Do they see the beauty of the moon
The sun, the moon, the stars, the infinite blue
Did you really think they were made just for you?

Life is a giant waiting room in which to bide
Where men wait sitting side by side
Their pains and fears are one
Their boredom shared, such is the world

I walk in a strange place, but am not alienated
Alone but not lonely, am going further or getting near
I who live a life of endless longing
Like a train passing by, but never belonging

Artwork by Yemeni artist Fuad AlFutaih