From Timbuktu to Chittagong,
in robes of grimy white,
we walk,
we run,
we walk
and run again
like ghostly scarecrows
flailing in a fetid purgatory.

Here, on Marwah —
Arbor of the Female Principle
in ancient times —
we stall as we negotiate the turn,
our arms outstretched to set
trajectories for supplication:

Yā Allāh, you whose mercy called me to the faith,
do not divest me of it till you cause my death!

And then we're off again,
towards Safā —
the Citadel of Masculinity,
where nimble satyrs
had their pleasures punitively petrified —
a roiling, ragged throng
that lurches to the left
and then, on impulse, to the right,

precariously braced against
the undertow of jahiliyyah.



NOTE 1: Sa'y is the walking back and forth seven
times between the hills of Safā and Marwah in Makkah.
This is one of the rites of pilgrimage, both umrah and
hajj, and is performed immediately after Tawāf.

NOTE 2: Jahiliyyah: The time of ignorance and idolatry
that is said to have preceded the advent of Islam.