Prayer Rug by Agha Shahid Ali
black stone descended from Heaven the pilgrims in white circling it
Prayer Rug
Those intervals between the day’s five calls to prayer the women of the house pulling thick threads through vegetables rosaries of ginger of rustling peppers in autumn drying for winter in those intervals this rug part of Grandma’s dowry folded so the Devil’s shadow would not desecrate Mecca scarlet-woven with minarets of gold but then the sunset call to prayer the servants their straw mats unrolled praying or in the garden in summer on grass the children wanting the prayers to end the women’s foreheads touching Abraham’s silk stone of sacrifice black stone descended from Heaven the pilgrims in white circling it this year my grandmother also a pilgrim in Mecca she weeps as the stone is unveiled she weeps holding on to the pillars (for Begum Zafar Ali)
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Source: The Half-Inch Himalayas (Wesleyan University Press, 1987)
Almost disconcertingly vivid and tactile. At first I misread "rustling" as "rusting." Rusting peppers, I liked that too. Poetry you can TOUCH is miraculous.
The way the grandmother, her life, her prayers, the vegetables in the designs, all woven together, seamless. Gorgeous.