Phantom Ship: A poem by: Dr Rafey Habib

Phantom Ship
(Lament for Islamic Knowledge)



What treasure lay in her stores:
Books, limned with gold and red,
Farabi, Ghazzali, frayed scrolls of dead
Wisdom, Ibn Hazm, papyrus weighed yellow
Under age, and majesty of algebra, gilt-edged
In symbols; poetry pure in blue
Calligraphy, philosophy embossed,
Circling outward on golden pages
Of Medieval gloss; astronomy, the
Heavens laid out in Arabic, myth,
Apothegm. What intellect, apostasy
Weighed her sails, sinking.

Where did she go? Sailing
From the Eastern sun, on
Reddening seas, ploughing
Shadow of silver-grey, her journey
Just begun, when dark
Lightning struck her sail:
A thousand years
Ago; gazing upon
Al-Asharis stern face, she
Fled beneath the waves.

Forgotten, betrayed,
Her beams rotting, she
Dreams, from her depth, of the
White surface.

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• Ship:
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• by:
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• Rafey
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[milograamans]

What a great poem! Five stars and favorited.