Fast And Slow

They call it fasting, but it slows me down
and makes my feet grow heavy, my head light.
I wait, impatient, while the sun creeps down
the sky. Surcease from hunger comes with night.
I hold the black thread close against the white
and watch, as differences fade from view.
In Ramadan, it would seem only right
the same should happen between me and you--
that we forget the quarrels we once knew,
that sit upon our hearts like lumps of lead.
Let's set them down, and when the month is through
there's no need to restart those tangled threads.
No need to make distinctions, white from black
till my alarm brings troubled daylight back.