my friend, the brilliant pakistani writer uzma aslam khan, shared this beautiful poem with me today.<\/p>\n
“Learning to Pray” by Kaveh Akbar<\/p>\n
My father moved patiently
\ncupping his hands beneath his chin,
\nkneeling on a janamaz<\/p>\n
then pressing his forehead to a circle
\nof Karbala clay. Occasionally
\nhe\u2019d glance over at my clumsy mirroring,<\/p>\n
my too-big Packers t-shirt
\nand pebble-red shorts,
\nand smile a little, despite himself.<\/p>\n
Bending there with his whole form
\nmarbled in light, he looked like
\na photograph of a famous ghost.<\/p>\n
I ached to be so beautiful.
\nI hardly knew anything yet \u2014
\nnot the boiling point of water<\/p>\n
or the capital of Iran,
\nnot the five pillars of Islam
\nor the Verse of the Sword \u2014<\/p>\n
I knew only that I wanted
\nto be like him,
\nthat twilit stripe of father<\/p>\n
mesmerizing as the bluewhite Iznik tile
\nhanging in our kitchen, worshipped
\nas the long faultless tongue of God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
my friend, the brilliant pakistani writer uzma aslam khan, shared this beautiful poem with me today. “Learning to Pray” by Kaveh Akbar My father moved patiently cupping his hands beneath his chin, kneeling on a janamaz then pressing his forehead to a circle of Karbala clay. Occasionally he\u2019d glance over at my clumsy mirroring, my … Continue reading Learning to Pray by Kaveh Akbar<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12982"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12982"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21497,"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12982\/revisions\/21497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}