Some interesting happenings/reads:

A friend of mine pitched a segment on American Muslim women to KQED radio host Michael Krasny, which will be aired tomorrow (Tuesday, June 17th) from 10-11 am PST featuring other friends and acquaintances of mine from the SF Bay Area. Please tune in, call in with questions, or e-mail them to show your support of Muslim Women Entrepreneurs.

A re-broadcast of the show will be available online right afterwards, here.

Umm Layth has posted the Muslimahs Speak Up Carnival, featuring the excellent piece Being a Disabled Muslim Woman by Meghan Rose.

Meet the winner of the Danish Miss Headscarf contest.

Check out Eboo Patel’s take on Zaytuna Institute’s proposed first Islamic seminary in the US in Muslims and the Destiny of America.

Iranian-born American artist Seyed Alavi transforms East Bay utility boxes into eye-popping works of art.

Meet the incredible and inspiring paralyzed yoga instructor, Matthew Sanford.

How to publish your own photo mag at Photojojo.

Check out The Western Muslim - a magazine which “examines the weaving of the Muslim diaspora into the fabric of North American society through the lenses of politics, law, culture, religion, the arts and more.”

And finally, today’s poetry selection is a golden oldie from 1920.

Enjoy!

The Cool, Grey City of Love (San Francisco)

Tho I die on a distant strand,
And they give me a grave in that land,
Yet carry me back to my own city!
Carry me back to her grace and pity!
For I think I could not rest
Afar from her mighty breast.
She is fairer than others are
Whom they sing the beauty of.
Her heart is a song and a star–
My cool, grey city of love.

Tho they tear the rose from her brow,
To her is ever my vow;
Ever to her I give my duty–
First in rapture and first in beauty,
Wayward, passionate, brave,
Glad of the life God gave.
The sea-winds are her kiss,
And the sea-gull is her dove.
Cleanly and strong she is–
My cool, grey city of love.

The winds of the Future wait
At the iron walls of her Gate,
And the western ocean breaks in thunder,
And the western stars go slowly under,
And her gaze is ever West
In the dream of her young unrest.
Her sea is a voice that calls,
And her star a voice above,
And her wind a voice on her walls–
My cool, grey city of love.

Tho they stay her feet at the dance,
In her is the far romance.
Under the rain of winter falling,
Vine and rose will await recalling.
Tho the dark be cold and blind,
Yet her sea-fog’s touch is kind,
And her mightier caress
Is joy and the pain thereof;
And great is thy tenderness,
O cool, grey city of love!

- By George Sterling