Where Old Ways Stay The Same
Where old ways stay the same
There’s usually a good reason
Ways don’t tend to disappear
When shown appreciation
Love, good manners, and kind regard
Tend to wither with neglect
Seasons change and pass with time
Transitioning unchecked
Until no longer remembered
Until unneeded anymore
Until with unfamiliar face
Love slowly closes the door
© 2015 Aisha Abdelhamid
;^)
♥ Remembering my first thoughts when I received this photo on 9 June, 1999 ♥
♥ Dedicated to my wonderful, loving husband Mohamed ♥
♥ On our ♥
♥ HAPPY 15TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY! ♥
♥ 29 July, 2014 ♥
Fifteen years is not a really long time,
Though sometimes it feels like forever –
Sometimes it feels like we have lived
Three lifetimes together
But I’ll gladly take 15 more –
I’m not ready to retire
Just because I’m breathing heavy
Doesn’t mean I’m tired!
♥
This is one of my favorite photos! It was taken by my awesome brother Jim’s awesome wife Corrine!
Visit their excellent travel blog for more awesome photos at:
Reflections Enroute
;^)
Special Thanks to Crysta at Dancing With Fireflies for reblogging my poem, Speak To Me In Kisses. This is my very first post to be reblogged! Click the link below to visit me at Crysta’s wonderful blog:
Subtitled: Beachglass Jewelry Set with Matching Poem
Bits of colored glass
Like fragments from our past
Lay scattered on the sand
Softly glistening in the sun 
Oh, catch them, catch them fast
These bits of colored glass
Like fragments of our past
And gather them one by one
String them like so many memories
With edges smoothed by time
Yet retaining the soft translucency
Of colorful days gone by
Don’t lose the wonders and mysteries
But string them like so many memories
With edges smoothed by time
Faded like a winter sky
The greens and yellows and blues
Are the gardens I grew with you
While our love was growing
While our flowers were blooming
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This gallery contains 61 photos.
I wrote this poem for my incredibly loving and wonderful husband on our 5th wedding anniversary, July 29, 2004:
SPEAK TO ME IN KISSES
Speak to me in kisses
I love every word that you say
Our lips press softly together
Our tongues caress each other
You say by this tender example
How sweet is your love for me
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SubhannAllah! Someone else saw and photographed a similar sunset!
Please find the entire image by Mr. Koch at this link:
© Phil Koch A Road to Nowhere in Particular – Horizons by Phil Koch. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
This is a poem I wrote a few years ago in my car as I was driving home from work.
It was the final day of fasting after six days of Shawwal, following directly after the Eid of Ramadan, and it was just before Mahgrib as I was heading out. The sky had rosy thin lines of clouds, reaching like fingers out over the green fields of South Carolina farmlands. The idea for this poem came to me, so I started scribbling lines on a junk mail envelope as I drove, knowing I would be very late if I didn’t hurry. But I was so hungry that I prayed in the parking lot of a Hardees, then on second thought, ran through the drivethru while I was there. I reached into the bag as I set off on the road again, and in the almost-Isha darkness, I didn’t know what I had put in my mouth.
The incredibly delicious earthy flavor of the super fresh, perfectly fried french fry potato flooded my senses with exquisite pleasure and gratitude for Allah… oh, it tasted so good, it’s really difficult to describe! It was the perfect intersection of hunger and satisfaction, patience and fullfilment, praying and receiving, fasting and iftar. I couldn’t see the envelope as I struggled and scrawled to complete the transfer of dream to poem, food to face, and thanks to Allah. Alhamdulillah the cell phone didn’t ring!
Breaking Fast After 6 days of Shawwal
The rosy fingers of Mahgrib
Are offering us morsels of love
As a husband feeding his bride
The first morning of their marriage
How long she was waiting
To taste his fingers on her lips!
And now that the waiting is over,
Tell me what tastes better –
The fingers or the food?
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Cairo Airport at Night - from http://www.egyptdaytours.com
OH CAIRO
Stepping out of the airport doors
Into the heavy night air
I fill my lungs like a love-struck bride
At the scent of her husband’s cologne
Exactly as an addicted ex-smoker
At the scent of burning leaves
Or upon entering a smoke-filled room
Oh Cairo, Ya Qahira
All of Egypt is contained in my lungs
So heavily laden is your scent
It is both noxious and obnoxious
Exhilarating and exalting
Addicting and sensuous as my husband’s cologne
So complex is your corporate perfume
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Grapevine and Date Palm at Dawn
OH CAIRO
Chapter 2
Waking up, I rise from my bed
And tiptoe to my window
I fill my eyes with the sight of green
In all degrees of saturation
From the palest, lightest, luminescent leaf
To fronds of silhouetted palm
Elegantly backlit by the dawn
Oh, Allah, Alhamdulillah
I have awakened into a dream
Unable to move, unable to breathe
Without first whispering to You my thanks
Without seeing Your Glory and singing Your Praise
Without recognizing Your Mercy and Grace
For delivering me into Egypt
The leaves of potatoes sparkle with dew
Planted in the orchard of peaches
Thickly like children playing at the feet
Of their mothers in straight lines for praying
Row after row of peach trees in flower
Their pink petals move like lips whispering in prayer
Their branches raised in salute and takbir
The fields of the farmers brightly cover the land
Like squares of a green-checkered blanket
Of wheat, romaine lettuce, and spicy gargir,
Cauliflower and cabbages and clover
Evergreen citrus trees generously laden
With oranges, nectarines and lemons,
And date palms swaying in stately columns
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Aisha's Oasis 