I’m with Ivy on a quick jaunt to Montreal this week — so for your reading pleasure (and mine), here’s one more guest post by the amazing Rawiya. A beautiful little poem that struck me on so many levels. Enjoy!

(new posts coming soon!)


Right Upon Left

I was taught to pray with my hands folded on my chest, Though I missed out on the ‘why.’
I got why we bowed, I got why we bent,
A physical display of what submission meant.
But I never gave much thought to my right and my left,
Resting gently on my curves of my breasts.

Sometimes I’d watch brothers in lines and rows,
Hands on their bellies, wrists grasped, or sometimes slack,
Or even sometimes clasped like mine smack dab
In the middle of their chest.
But you’d never see a lady
with her hands across her belly.
And I guess I started to believe, unconsciously,
That this posture must be
A posture based on modesty.

There must be something about my chest,
The undulation of my breasts
That offends, upsets the Greatest.

And so I hid myself.
(Just as much as some brothers did),
Out of sight, out of mind.
Let’s keep my temptations out of everyone’s
line of sight.

But good gracious, I got it wrong.
Those folded hands
Aren’t meant to hide my shame
From The Shaper, Al-Musawwir.

He knows All
about my curves, after All.

That folded right-upon-left,
Resting on my shapely breasts
(I’m pretty sure) is meant
to keep my heart from flying out of my chest
In Ecstasy!
In direct communion with
The Beginningless,
The Endless.