Encounter
Ramzi Albert Rihani
Surrounded by students with faraway looks
“Don’t fear the unknown” the teacher said
It is a place of discovery
With comfort, you get complacent
With encounter, you approach celestial spheres
Abstract makes you think
Mystery makes you dream
Like colors added to a grey winter sky
They create spring in the middle of a desert
Hundred years later, the pupils become gurus
Teaching their grandparents what heaven’s like
Years of searching
A minute of enlightenment
A cycle of life, a rhythm never-ending
Born to a literary family of poets, writers, novelists, and critics, Ramzi Albert Rihani is a Lebanese-American writer who has been writing and publishing poetry for several years. His work has appeared in several publications in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Romania, South Africa, China and India, including Chronogram magazine, Cacti Fur Journal, Ariel Chart International Literary Journal, Poetry Potion, The Piker Press, Active Muse, Ephemeral Elegies, Impspired, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, W-Poesis Literary Journal, Valiant Scribe Literary Journal, Flora Fiction Quarterly, The Literary Yard, and The Silent Journey Anthology. He is a published music critic. He wrote and published a travel book, The Other Color – a Trip Around the World in Six Months (FMA Press), and three plays, two of which were produced on stage. Ramzi has lived in the Washington, DC, area most of his life.