June 9: Summer Has Arrived, Kazim Ali, "Ramadan"

The solstice is approaching quickly.  The days are getting longer and longer.  There's still light in the sky at ten o'clock at night.  That makes me feel very content.  Finally, it feels like summer has arrived in the Upper Peninsula.

Another sign of summer is the weekend of the end-of-year dance recital for my kids.  It has been a long week of rehearsals already.  Tomorrow, I will spend the entire day in a darkened theater, watching rehearsal and then the performance in the evening.  Life is very good.


Currently, it is the month of Ramadan. It will end shortly after the solstice this year.

Saint Marty is really thankful for everything summer.

Ramadan

by:  Kazim Ali

You wanted to be so hungry, you would break into branches,
and have to choose between the starving month's
nineteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-third evenings.
The liturgy begins to echo itself and why does it matter?
If the ground-water is too scarce one can stretch nets
into the air and harvest the fog.
Hunger opens you to illiteracy,
thirst makes clear the starving pattern,
the thick night is so quiet, the spinning spider pauses,
the angel stops whispering for a moment—
The secret night could already be over,
you will have to listen very carefully—
You are never going to know which night's mouth is sacredly reciting
and which night's recitation is secretly mere wind—