i escape from my counting house and flee to the mosque.
i pray at the appointed times and in between.
the imam passes me by, his rustles comfort me.
if only i could be as other men.
who revel if clinking coin. who swell with pride at their task master's smile.
to me, all clinking is but pounding and all smiling is grimace.
but how, o lord, can i be as the great ones? those who take the mantle of the world.
i shudder not at holding worlds--but they must be those of my own creation; or of the gods within me.
for to me to pray is to live.
to bend the knees is food.
to weep in my presence my wine sweet.
o ineffable. the world is but a drop in the ocean of all being.
yet you call us the apple of your eye. blink not!
for rather we are a single tear. wipe us not away with your silken robes.
o god. were it not for wives and children, all men would leap off cliffs, throw themselves before chariots.
now i know why men love war. it keeps them as close to death as possible, yet they are praised for bravery rather than ridiculed.
for we who pray and weep and wail for thee, we are fools. yet our desire for death is no less.
and yet we face our worldly lives with a degree of decorum.
this is why, o lord, our moans mus be kept behind our beards; our hearts stilled beneath our robes, our laments choked, our prayers cut short and our hands put to work odious. for are not our hands flat the better to worship on thy marble courts?
o god. find a way through for me. through this veil to thy courts heavenly.
save me from the counting house. for i know it is your will that we refrain from sinking daggers into our hearts---you reserve that pleasure for yourself.
so then. i must leave the coolness of your temple and return to my counting-house. o! how i hate the hearty smiles of the selling men! how i wrtech to see the counting men hunched over their counting tables. how i groan endless groans at the abacus before me, the papers and scrolls at my bench. the calls to the wealthy to beg a crust, but to beg in rags of finest silk.
is there no way for me o lord? here i am. much of my life-stands are spilled. can i even yet live a life of honor? i was rejected by the imam for study. even the heretics in their mud and wattle huts full of cries and gesticulations; they also reject me for i am not yet insane enough. what then? what then?
