Call to Prayer in Luxor
The muezzin cracks the dream open
like an egg, the yolk and white spilling
into the deep dark. Allahu Akbar
streams into my hotel room in Luxor.
Caught in the nets of sleep, I want oblivion.
The voice pulls me to surface. A long flight
the day before, my arms and legs
stiff. The room unfamiliar,
the recitation not. Now, another joins,
then a third. What time of day is it,
although I see it on my clock. Pre-dawn,
of course. Stop this, or lull into the soft
reverent voices I knew. A word of blessing
or two still slips through the pillow I’ve pressed
over my head, and I drift on that sail-breathing
breeze. The Salat al-fajr begins the day
for many here but returns no faith to me
to kneel, face east. How I wish it would.
Kathleen Calby lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains and hosts writer events for the North Carolina Writers Network. Her work appears in San Pedro River Review, New Plains Review and The Orchards Poetry Journal. Named a 2022 Rash Award Poetry Finalist, Kathleen published Flirting with Owls (Kelsay Books) in 2023. Her Sufi background and other mystical associations contributed to a recent full-length manuscript she is completing about ancient and contemporary Egypt and the Pharaonic Era landmarks she was privileged to experience. Back home, Kathleen enjoys fried chicken and biscuits a bit too much and long, strenuous walks not enough.
Amethyst Review 