Praise be to the Saturator of Southern Anatolia
Pious dogs howl in the cold rain at Asr prayer. Human voices blast through speakers hung from minarets and bounce off the clouds, echoing, “Allahu Akbar!” I declare, there is no god but God. There is no rain but from the Rainmaker. All the soggy dogs believe this. Here is a bone dry land, but today it’s as damp as the banks of the Mississippi. The Euphrates marks the end of the west and the beginning of the east. Some old men still argue about the qibla-- the direction of prayer. Any direction is sacred to a soggy dog who knows summer thirst and the miseries of winter. All good and evil comes from Allah.