The Islamic Monthly

PILLARS OF CLOUD

Pillars of cloud extend down to earth

during Ramadan

inside of which angel coils swirl continuously upward and

downward to a sweet music just beyond

earshot

Great aerial pulleys and gears mistily squeaking like

crickets calling out for mates in their

emeraldine solitudes

And great transparent columnar tubes amplifying

distant voices

And cncoiled inside the voices meanings in incomplete

sentences

All of which both the intermingling of sounds and voices

is completed by our hunger for I lis sake

And then our palatial appreciation of any morsel that

breaks it as if such hunger

never existed

DANIEI. ABDAL-HAYYMOORE