The following poem appears in our Spring/Summer 2021 issue. Subscribe today or purchase the single issue in digital format to read the rest of Yahia’s poem and the entire issue.
Sacred signs everywhere, yourself among them.
The master of darkness is a student of the Light.
Recognize the warped virtues wrapped within your vices.
Silence and Time are wiser than us.
Just as some lust for material wealth, there is also spiritual greed for gnosis.
I cannot have what I want: a curse, a blessing.
Being frightened by your shadow and making peace with it are not mutually exclusive.
Free speech is not an absolute good, nor is censorship an absolute evil.
We are moral beings and words lead to actions.
The best type of censorship is self-censorship — aka morality.
Spiritually-speaking, a sense of independence is a form of arrogance.
How we address our pain can help us prolong or overcome it.
True solitude is not lonely, it is companionable.
To better see, as darkness falls, move closer towards the Light.
—
YAHIA LABABIDI, a Lebanese-Egyptian-American, is the author of 9 collections of poetry, prose and aphorisms. His new book, Revolutions of the Heart, is preoccupied with crises and, in turn, the possibility for transformations: political, cultural and spiritual.
This is a small representation of the high-quality writings you’ll find in every issue of TIFERET.
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