While I was Walking the Trails...

A prophetic image of the voice of the wind, unseen, but never silent.

The wind has a voice

and it never changes.

Not with the rise of cities,

nor the fall of names carved into stone.

Not with the first cry of a child

or the last breath of a king.

It speaks,

and has always spoken,

in the same ancient tongue.

Sometimes it softens,

like a secret passed bayn al-quloob

(between hearts),

barely brushing the skin,

as if afraid to be heard.

Sometimes it roars

through broken streets and restless seas,

louder than grief,

louder than memory itself.

But it is the same voice,

always the same voice.

We are the ones who change.

We who tremble beneath it,

who call it gentle

when we are at peace,

and cruel

when we are undone.

We who name it

storm, whisper, warning, breath,

as if giving it language

makes it ours.

Lakin al-reeh… la tatabaddal.

(But the wind does not change.)

It does not learn us,

it does not bend to our stories.

It passes through them.

Through lovers who swear forever

and forget.

Through empires that rise like fire

and vanish like ash.

Through prayers lifted to heaven

and those that fall quietly back to earth.

Al-reeh rasool.

(The wind is a messenger.)

Not because it changes its voice,

but because it carries everything

through the same one.

Grief,

joy,

dust,

Akhir wadaa’

(a final farewell).

All of it,

woven into a single, endless sound.

And if you stand still long enough,

if you quiet the noise inside your chest,

you might hear it,

not as wind,

but as something older,

something that has been speaking

long before you learned to listen.