Watch Your Life

Watch your thoughts, they become words.

Watch your words, they become actions.

Watch your actions, they become habits.

Watch your habits, they become character.

Watch your character, they become destiny.


Source: Back of book cover of Pearls of Wisdom 3

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A Grateful Addition:

Muharram Mubarak!

I'm sharing the poem I've written for everyone having to suffer the impact of war and for those who have been martryred. May Allah grant them all Jannatul Firdaus, Insha Allah.

Dark Flowers
(for Nadia Anjuman Herawi & All Martyred in War)

Dark flowers come blazing from the night skies
Sulphurous blooms burn, mutilate; blow
bodies apart.
Tell me who are the warmongers, terror stokers-why, do innocents die?

The planet pirouettes on its bloodied axis
Missiles fly dragonflies of fire carted by hands hollow of heart
Dark flowers come blazing from the night skies

Bombs blast away towers and trees up high
Emit rays, scrape skin. Scorched faces smart.
Tell me who are the warmongers, terror-stokers-why do innocents die?

In times of jittery Peace we're living with war. Why I ask, why?
Guantamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, live walls and camps, state-of-the-art
Dark flowers come blazing from the night skies

On continents and seas of plenty, people war, starve and die
Who attached the price-tags, carved land, diamonds, coal, oil and water apart?
Tell me who are the warmongers, terror-stokers-why do innocents die?

And you, my scintillating star in the nightsky
I thank praise you now for villanelles that sting and dart
Dark flowers come blazing from the night skies
Tell me who are the warmongers, terror-stokers-why do innocents die?

Deela Khan (11 September 2006)