(to Amal)
Musical Child of May, spirit fierce and
fair!
Born to Spring when the cricket cheers,
or
Drowsy nightingale weeps in melody, to
beget
A new breed that in future glory may
rhyme--
Here to the twenty, and a thousand to
come,
Of all your soft and moon-lit mid-May
eves.
Strange how much change the passing
day reveals,
Stranger yet how your heart, sweet
child, stays in love; ever-truer,
Blind to what was or will be said. Glow!
MayChild of that immortal season,
ancient friend
To Hyades that forever mourn and weep
for their slain.
Pray, MayChild, to lift a lowered world
up to a higher ground:
Pray for Mulki, avid, able, so full of life,
And for him who from womb to tomb
trod his way too soon;
Pray for Leyla, hostage to a future
brighter than can be said,
And for this one, humbled and defiant if
broken they say;
Pray for Ilham, a beauty that will burn
another Troy,
And for Kamal, princely and tall and to
reign;
Pray for Fatah, to whom Allah left
enlightening common minds,
And for Sahardid, gifted with what for
so many in envy crave;
Pray for Guled, made of the rare, born
for the best;
Pray, MayChild, for mean and hateful
were not said of you--
Pray for us now and at the hour of our
birth!
Tender Star of May, beauty blessed
before her birth!
Rich and loyal in love, as some are not,
Forget not: the ways of the are not those
of love:
In a rugged world where brutes tread
their petty ways of hate,
They break the heart that shows love in
full faith;
Venus, who versed you well in perfumed
gardens of Spring,
Knew that men's promise and trust
vanish with the fleeting hour:
Consider Echo who, for love sincere,
became but a faint voice--
Consider one might not be so loved by
whom one loves so deep!
-by Hakim H. Kassim.
(d. May 15, 1993)