The Prophets Are Leaving

By Kenza Saadi

Can you hear them?

The prophets are leaving.

They have had enough.

 

The mountains no longer go to them,

no sea is churned, while the sky hides its moon

and the stars are too blurry to read.

 

The earth lays desolate like a dead turtle on its back.

Not a leaf, not a whisper of wind remains,

there is nothing left to measure or to paint.

Dissonance fills every cavity, even the husks of wheat.

It no longer rains, and no one understands that it is because alchemy is taught no more.

 

The prophets are leaving.

 

Left behind are the screamers.

 

Absolute love languishes untouched.

They confined it to a dreary definition reducing the One to oneself.

 

Now Rumi is read obtrusively by myopic egos too scared to dive into the sea

– eight hundred years of wisdom discarded.

 

The prophets are gone. I heard their steps.

They left in the middle of the night, only the poets were awake.

 

After they left, I read Rumi.

His book of poetry and I burst into flames.

 

Kenza Saadi Elmandjra worked in conflict zones for many years as a humanitarian worker. After seeing so much hurt, she now turned to beauty teaching art history and writing poetry. A dual Moroccan-Mexican citizen, she now lives in Morocco.