Making Hajj at Bear Lodge
by Kevin James
click-clack, something snapped
perhaps Ground Zero rubble
burst my self-identity bubble,
or 2002 headlines that stressed
religious police kept firefighters
from rescuing Meccan schoolgirls
due to dress - no matter
I vowed never to set foot
in Saudi Arabia regardless
Allah totally understood
Allah already knew I would
the Book, the One
organizing principle
internalized horizon
mirror to the soul
finding in scripture
what I brought to it
inverted relation between
human and Absolute Being
agnostic dialectics
determined in the last instance
neither prophets’ nor philosophers’
but my own soliloquy of immanence
Allah understood
Allah knew my thoughts before I did
all beings act
according to their nature
with each having a focal point
about which they revolve
hence my resolve
to discover my own
so when my son asked me
during our walk one morning
“hey pops, how about a trip
to Bear Lodge in Wyoming?”
monolithic Tower of Power
landing strip for alien spaceships
half-way between NY & Oregon
ah ha! this would be my Hajj…
sure, let’s do it
Allah understood
Allah already knew we would
we left NYC with an aura of sadness
Adrienne, my wife, just couldn’t join us
oh, she loved Close Encounters so
but cancer and bad knees told her no
then we flew and we drove
at ridiculously high speeds
along empty expanses of highway
until Bear Lodge began filling
the rough-hewn vista:
no wonder, I thought
the indigenous peoples
who lived in its presence
venerated Bear Lodge
in its sacred quintessence
Allah understood
Allah always knew they would
it was somber, mystical
joyous all rolled into one
we traipsed around the base
mostly in solitude
beneath pixilated shadows & light beams
cast by the blazing spotlight overhead
making communion all the while
taking selfies, marveling at rock climbers
against the pure azure-blue sky
some near the summit so high
they appeared as motionless specks
transfixed in the magical event horizon
of Bear Lodge’s gravitational vortex
like we were
as I am
Allah understands all too well.
About the Author
The author is a retired New York City firefighter and arson investigator who was one of several Muslim Americans profiled in the PBS documentary Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet. He was a Revson Fellow at Columbia University where he also participated in the 9/11 Oral History Project and later graduated from Columbia Law School as a Stone Scholar. His poetry has appeared in Into the Void, the Tahoma Literary Review, the Black Mountain Press, Griffel, Moonstone Arts Center, Beyond Words Literary, Rigorous and The Dewdrop. Most of his published works can be accessed at https://agnostic-dialectics.com/