Yasmine Modaresi (she/her) // Contributor
Ren Zhang (they/them) // Illustrator
Her existence radiates my livelihood in fervent polars.
Soul shining through her human shrouds, she is as profound as Jibrāil’s radiance in the presence of prophets,
Yet her form is marked with the archetypical profanity of Babylon’s harlot.
Neither divine nor tarnished by sin, her light is grey;
The turbulence of Mother Nature held in her fragile mortal form.
An enigma and a guide,
She is my soul’s oasis,
The northern star leading me across the Sahara on my final Hajj,
And a comforting comrade walking the holy pilgrimage, hand in hand with I.
Were I to die of thirst here on the desert floor,
Forced to endure the fate of vermin,
I’d rather that my last taste be of her
Than that sweet water of life, for she is lovelier than nectar.
It is the maker who sends the winds and glad tides heralding mercy;
But she is the messenger bringing waters of baptism from the paradise above;
She is the wind that carries the breath of life;
To drink her is to be salvaged.
To breathe her is to be alive.
She is divinity and profanity, creator and creation, the essence of nature personified.
In life, let me absorb her profanity;
In death, let me absorb her mortality.
Before and after her metamorphosis,
I worship her with every fibre of my being.