Luminous by Muneera Pilgrim

31 Days of Poems: Day 1

Taken from Muneera Pilgrim’s 2021 collection, That Day She’ll Proclaim her Chronicles, published by Burning Eye Books.

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LUMINOUS

Oh Allah, place light in my heart, and on my tongue light, and in my ears light and in my sight light, and above me light, and below me light, and to my right light, and to my left light, and before me light and behind me light. Place in my soul light. Magnify for me light, and amplify for me light…
                                                                                                - Dua of Light

Half two, and the barbershops are brimming
        on Stapleton Road, a mother negotiating
               her son's first trim.
There are queues of cars outside the Senegalese
      car wash, tasbihs hanging from each rear-view mirror.
               A boy, no more than seventeen,

bends to tie the laces of his girlfriend's Air Force 1s
      while she continues speaking into her phone.
            The man in Beauty Queen puts two for the price
of one on bundles of X-Pressions 27-inch purple hair.
      Rotisserie chicken spins outside the Lebanese Café;
              two uncles stand in the doorway of
the Three Black Birds disputing whether pimento
      or thyme is best to flavour mackerel rundown,
              all before agreeing the breadfruit from
across the road is wata belly and overpriced.
        Fearless of spillage from syrup mixed with
              crushed ice, the sky juice man looks ready

for an all-white rave. The church sisters are on the side
      of the boy at the bus stop, such that when police
               try to stop and search,
the sisters rebuke them in the name of Christ the Lord,
       and it seems Jesus hears, because they relent.
               The Roadman helps the old woman across
the street with her shopping; they speak about the
          rising price of food, and how in her day there
                were more helpful young men like him.
He feels good for the first time in a long time.
        Mercedes and Maserati are driving with their tops
               down, or windows open. A crew of cyclists

fly by with Skepta and Wizkid playing through their
         speakers. Days like this when the air is scarce
                and the sun beats down to compete with
the light of the everyday people who decorate the streets,
          they are lighthouses, or lanterns at least.

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I think it was the phrase ‘the light of every day people’ that made me choose this poem over a number of others I was torn between.

I had just seen a post about Ibrahim Hussein, the chairman of Southport Mosque, who was ‘moved to tears’ and overwhelmed by the generosity of the local community, who had come together to extend kindness and help clean up after the mosque and local area were attacked by a far-right group who had descended on the town- their riots a violent response to hastily-spread rumours about the identity of the person who had murdered three young children. Behind him and in his hands were bunches of flowers and I found myself thinking about the way these simple actions will have lightened the load he was carrying and reminded the community that they have the support of those around them.

And then I thought, too, of the video of the woman who bravely faced up to this roaring crowd of (mostly) angry men, raising above her head a sign saying, ‘Hope not hate. Racism not welcome here’, and how, even as the town mourned the loss of three precious lives, they weren’t blinded by hatred of a fabricated enemy but, in their collective grief, sought community instead.

A reminder that even under the most challenging circumstances, we can still be ‘lighthouses, or lanterns at least.’