Silence

I notice that there has been a great deal of silence

between Allah and you of late.

There are two kinds of silence.

In one kind, you are faced away from your Beloved.

You have closed off your heart,

   you have stopped speaking—and listening—

and have spurned all intimate congress between you.

This kind of silence is cold and dead and forbidding.

In the other kind, you are facing towards your Beloved.

Your eyes are fixed on His

   and love radiates between you, filling your heart

and communicating intimacies too tender for words.

This kind of silence begat the worlds.

I do not presume to know what is happening

between you and Allah, so perhaps you will tell me.

Which way are you facing?