KNOT Magazine
Fall Issue 2022
Lahab Assef Al-Jundi
Naturally
You are beautiful
Pure spirit
Face of goddess
Naturally
It is true what the elders told you
Spirits do travel
Cosmic knack
Mediums that bond us
Your falling in love with me
was the answer to my
prayers—
Long wait for love to arrive
In a moment of recognition
we said without words
Let’s do this
together
There is a look I still delight in
when in your eyes I spot
A rush of doves
Radiant wings of butterflies
Provisos
It is between me and God.
We are on personal terms.
I don’t need to go through anyone else
to be with Her!
You and I don’t need to argue
over our notions of God.
You and I are but two blades of grass
in a wide open field.
Each one of us trying to describe
what’s beyond the hills!
I just want God to see the world
through my eye.
We can imagine all we want;
We are still two blades of grass!
Eve
Adam could have been the one
to pick the forbidden fruit,
offer it to Eve to share with him
under the tree
It makes no difference
What was the moral of that old story?
To learn blind obedience?
Or were we being protected
like children when told not to play with fire?
Tested?
And how was sex brought into it
making Eve’s beauty something to resist
like an Evil temptation?
Old God surely has His funny ways
Defender
Aficionado of the forgotten flower
Defender of the neglected bird
Rescuer of scorned insights
Champion of clandestine passions
His attention is on the loser when
victor is up on jubilant shoulders
He calls on all to unite in peace
yet is first to abscond the crowd
San-Antonio based poet Lahab Assef al-Jundi is the son of acclaimed Syrian poet Ali al-Jundi. The younger Al-Jundi writes poetry, mainly in English, that transcends ethnic themes to address issues of universal significance. Both political and personal, his richly evocative poems reveal a refined consciousness, a keen perceptiveness, and a serious engagement with humane concerns. While widely published, Al-Jundi’s Arab- American presence was particularly voiced through the ground-breaking anthology Inclined to Speak, edited by Hayan Charara (2008).
The latest collection of his poems, titled No Faith at All, was published earlier this year by Pecan Grove Press.
A Hundred Spins
It is really not whether The Big Bang happened or not
Not whether to believe jasmines and cooing doves
evolved by random chance alone
It is not how many millions of years light travels
before it bounces off the glass of our telescopes
Or to what powers of ten quantum physicists
plunge into the mysterious world of the atom
For creatures that cannot hope to live
for more than a hundred spins around their sun
Or to travel any further than the nearest planet
All that is for naught
Unless the heart discovers
it is interlaced with something eternal
Something more real than this beautiful world of
ten thousand things
Springtide
Come
Inhabit my wilderness
Commit your
Most intense reverence
Bring back to life
Dormant flocks of longing
Sing this burgeoning field
Into full blossom
No banes here
Only healing
Resurrections
We Are These Moments
We understand the words
Feel their sensations
Ultimately
We discover the permanency we seek
In each and every moment
Not in their passing
But in their convergence
Sacredness
We surrender to
Though we know
It is innately part of
Who we are
What we become
Every time
We make Love