Salsabil: (softly flowing river)

Qur'án: 76:18: "From the fount therein whose name is Salsabíl (the softly flowing)."

 Expectation April 1969 Fort Collins, Colorado. 

High School is over for me,
A sweetly strange mood hovers over the air
That lingers from a recent dream.
I stand on the street curb in front of Hickman’s for Men
Looking across South College Avenue
To a campus lawn across the street
It’s my timeline: past, present and tomorrow.
I sense something is going on.
Beyond the war in ‘Nam
Beyond Racial hatred here in my homeland.
Something is going on quiet and deep.
Deeper and beyond what is going on.
Something great is moving in, penetrating the soul.
As I stand in front of Hickman’s for Men
(The store where I bought my Scout uniform.
Years ago in junior high.)
Ethereal voices, a few compressed into one Speech,
Serene, faintly heard somewhere press behind me.
I sense the transcendental Presence of the eternal Essence.
I wonder if those around me feel it too. 
 

I watch an African woman, stately and noble,
Cross South College Avenue
She wears a long, vibrant kaftan
With a matching head wrap,
She crosses the avenue with two large books
Balanced on her head.
Her posture is straighter than anyone
You could meet in my hometown. By her looks
She is beautiful, elegant, and chaste.
I only know she is African, but I am too naïve
To distinguish between tribes and the kingdoms
They once reigned.
She crosses the avenue like a mirage,
Like a soft flowing stream rushing to paradise.
Do I really see her floating by in the spring air?
Maybe this is why I am here, 
Should I follow her and see if she might be a link?
She reaches the other side only to fade away.
Past stale, old buildings, as if she is only a blink
Misplaced in the stroke of another spring day.

Something will happen if I stay aware.
Deep to the bone, a sense, and a whiff in the air.
That the world is to be changed.
It is not clear what, when, 0r where
The restless moment when the world is rearranged.
I am young and think in momentary events
That strike quick like lightning or an atomic blast;
Impulses that bolt fast into life without premeditation.
I watch traffic pass by
Thinking a sign will burst across the sky
Escorted by fire and a heavenly choir.

I watch a car pass by filled with noisy, young men.
The windows are down, and loud music disturbs the mood.
From inside the weathered car, The Beach Boys’
“Two girls for every guy” blares out of old sedan.
The “Girls are made for sex” music of the day.
Not the holy voices I expected to hear.

C. S. Cholas

October 8, 2023
Memory from 1969