SUJOOD by Hafsa Mumtaz

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his poem encapsulates the essence of a trance-like feeling that one fuses into as one is bowing before Allah (S.W.T.) on a prayer mat. It curls from under and around the membranes of one’s heart as one connects with a Higher Existence that beckons your soul as you take a single step towards It. The word, ‘Sujood’ is a plural for the term, ‘Sajda’, which means to bow. The true art of expression begins when you feel that a Greater Power is with you (when not a soul is there for you), listening to you, as you bow to Him on the Canvas of Profundity – the prayer mat. 

 

Sujood

hush – darkness charges and comes to a standstill

somersaulting into an ocean of Light,

lashes wet like the bristles of a paintbrush,

stroke the Canvas of Profundity

here, I speak with my heart

for my tongue feels too insignificant

the darkest hour when all eyes

smudge into a panorama of subconsciousness

Allah still listens to me.

In Sujood, you find yourself

for the world crumbles under your feet

as you gnaw at the last cord holding you intact

for the world fuses into a shroud of your dreams

as you embellish your dressing table to appear pretty for an outing

for your life is an hourglass sucking every speck out of you

and you pass away into a heap of sand – 

ostracized by your closest one.

for only in Sujood, as your eyes are closed,

as your heart opens, as your hopes fall apart,

as your soul splits asunder,

will the Light enter you.

so, I speak without words

to the One who'll always listen,

who'll always answer my prayers

with stardust, with filigree, with aurora – 

in ways unimaginable.

Hafsa Mumtaz (she/her/hers), aged 22, is a Pakistani poet, a graduate of English Language and Literature, and a Muslim. Her poetry has been published in Visual Verse Anthology, Rising Phoenix Review, Women’s Spiritual Poetry, and in The New Verse News. She loves to write retrospective pieces on women empowerment, and the transcendental.

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