Nature and Spirituality

Books by Marvin X

Love and War: Poems / In the Crazy House Called America / Woman: Man's Best Friend / Beyond Religion Toward Spirituality

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Nature and Spirituality

By Marvin X

Morning sun, Ra ascending, beam of light, truth. Air still. Ancient trees, rolling hills. Bird symphony. Cry of wild turkeys. Cows graze. Lizard inside my funky shoes outside door. Now he's a funky lizard. Lizard inside my house. I put him out but he finds his way inside each day as if he lives there. Snake slithers into tall grass. Geese head north following leader.

If you turn off the music you might hear the birds. Let the birds sing bye bye black bird. Turn off the music. Listen to the bird god.

When Negroes come to the country they bring the beat from the city. boom boom boom. boom boom boom. the urban jungle beat. boom boom boom. Negro say kill the lizard, kill the bee kill the fly kill the bird kill the mosquito kill the turtle. boom boom boom. boom boom boom. Negro can't be still enjoy nature, nature's God as Sun Ra used to say. Cannot connect with trees, mountains, creek, rivers. Negro not at peace. Cannot appreciate stars in the night, moon, Jupiter. Negro must have beat, jungle beat, boom boom boom, boom boom boom. Too quiet he moans. Let there be noise. Boom boom boom. Kill the cow, kill turkey, kill deer. Boom boom boom. One cow says to another, "Why don't they return to their city where they kill each other?" Boom boom boom.

Go down to the creek, talk to the water, listen to the water, be still. Listen to water crossing stones, water crossing weeds, listen. Let water fill your ears, water moves forward gushing forth, pure water.

Look up at the Hawk gliding smooth, no wings moving, still, gliding high low, stops still in sky. Move like a hawk. I am hawk, searching for prey. Chief bird of the air, controlling ground traffic, bird of grandeur, king of sky.

Look at God everyday. The tall pines, silent, still for a thousand years. God speaks loud and clear, except to deaf dumb and blind, crazy with saviors and messiahs whose message they will not heed in a thousand years. Can they fool God? The fool fools himself.

Pious pronouncements, wicked actions. Cannot be still, cannot stand tall like pine. Cannot bend in the wind.

Something is strange today. There are no birds, strange silence. No birds, no Hawk gliding. Can life be without birds, their constant song. How can one get up without birds. Is morning to be no more. What world is this, the world money bought. The world for the material boy and girl. Where are the birds?

I am in the garden. The garden is in me. Here comes the butterfly. What happened to the butterfly this year. Did man kill the butterfly. Why kill Bill. Don't you see all of nature gathers around you in the name of love. The flowers come to you in the name of love. Even the weeds are golden, full of beauty, full of love.

Look, all is still like the first morning of the world. I write naked on a bench. Squirrels watch me watching them.

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Marvin X has given permission to Harvard University to publish his poem "For El Haji Rasul Taifa" from Love and War: Poems by Marvin X (1995). The poem will appear in The Encyclopedia of Islam in America Volume II, Greenwood Press, edited by Dr. Jocelyne Cesari of Harvard's Islam in the West Program. Mr. X is co-editor of the forthcoming anthology Muslim American Literature, University of Arkansas Press, edited by Dr. Mojah Khaf. He is also in the forthcoming Muslim American Drama, Temple University.

posted 19 June 2006

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update 29 July 2008