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Something I learned when making this poem was how difficult it is to do, at points I would find myself searching what rhymes with a certain word. The essential question I answered was, "What is common across early people groups and cultures?" I engaged this with the place of worship in Islam mosques. I felt like I was able to connect my ideas into this poem. It was very hard to start, but once I got into it I just let my ideas flow. The risks I found hard to take were the literary devices. It just felt so awkward every time I talk about any of the devices except for rhyming which was surprisingly fun. My biggest takeaway from this unit it to just start however messy it is and then revise it later.

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Since the dawn of humanity deities are found,

Deities in culture will always be profound.

Civilization young, their hearts did not yearn,

Crafting gods from lessons learned.

Upon the sphere they call home,

Polytheism and Monotheism will be known.

Sun gods graced the day’s warmness,

Moon goddesses cradled the night in bliss.

Temples, synagogues, and mosques arose,

Prayer is what people learned to compose.

Rivers whispered, mountains sung,

Tales of deities spread in every tongue.

The tales created were alive as the prophets themselves,

The startling fact that the power of gods always dwells.

Gods carved in stone, myths alive,

In every culture, the divine would thrive.

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I haven't learnded much about Judaism or Islaam, but I grew up with both my parenst and all my grandparents Christian. I don't know a lot about Judaism or Islaam, so when it comes to questions about them I don't know where to even start.

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When I watch Kyrie

I am amazed.

With his amazing handles,

what else am I to do but glaze?

As he drives into the defense

he is certainly the bravest.

Even with four in the paint he scores,

he must be the greatest.

With more shiftyness than Iverson

and better shots than Curry,

the championship is where Kyrie will bring.

Because he is my glorious king

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The mosaic reminds us of our duties.

The polychrome-glazed cut tiles mesmerize.

To pray is what we must do,

because the hard work on this piece must be recognized.

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KEY WORDS AND IDEAS
Five Pillars of Islam, Arabic, calligraphy ( kufic, thuluth, and muhaqqaq scripts), Mecca, Qur'an, madrasa (religious school), Iran, tilework

LINK TO THE THEME OF THIS UNIT
Mihrabs, like this example from Iran, are central architectural features of mosques and many Islamic religious schools all over the world.

FUNCTION
A mihrab is a niche in the wall of a mosque or religious school ( madrasa) that indicates the direction of Mecca ( qibla), which Muslims face when praying. It is the architectural and symbolic focal point of religious buildings.

DESCRIPTION/VISUAL ANALYSIS
This mihrab is decorated with inscriptions on a background of cobalt blue, turquoise, golden yellow, white, and dark green tile mosaic. The outermost rectangular band contains cursive verses from the Qur'an (9:14-22) describing God as all-knowing and omnipresent. The frame around the niche is decorated with arabesque designs outlined in blue and interspersed with floral blossoms. An inscription from the hadith (Sayings of the Prophet), written in angular kufic script (see also The Development and Spread of Calligraphic Scripts) along the edge of the pointed arch, describes the Five Pillars of Islam. At the center of the mihrab, directly facing the worshippers, an inscription reads: "The Prophet, may peace be upon him, said, 'the mosque is the abode of the pious.'"

CONTEXT
This prayer niche comes from a fourteenth-century religious school (Madrasa Imami) in Isfahan, in present-day Iran. Students would have performed their daily prayers here, but would also have gone to the communal mosque on Fridays. This mihrab shows that lavish ornamentation was encouraged rather than shunned, even in religious settings.
RELATED AUDIO FROM THE GALLERY GUIDE
Sheila Canby: The call to prayer reminds pious Muslims five times a day to make their prayers to God. Imam Shamsi Ali, from the Islamic Cultural Center of New York, recites it for us in his beautiful voice.

[Recitation]

Navina Haidar: Can you tell what this huge object is made from? Look at the surface. It's made from tile. Each individual shape was cut and painted separately. Then everything was pieced together absolutely perfectly, like an enormous jigsaw puzzle.

Notice the tall section in the middle that curves inward, with the pointed top. That shape tells us that this is a mihrab. In every mosque, a mihrab shaped like this shows the direction towards Mecca, the holy city for Muslims. In the mosque, people face the mihrab wall when they pray.

This dazzling mihrab was made more than six hundred years ago. Look around the outside edge at that thick border of dark blue, with white and turquoise markings. Those are words in Arabic, from the Muslim holy book, the Qur'an. In Islamic art in general, creating beautiful letters is considered one of the most important forms of art. In a mosque, this lettering would often be combined with elaborate patterns, like they are here.

Within the patterns, do you see some shapes that remind you of stars or intertwining flowers? Imagine all the walls inside a mosque being covered in tile patterns and words. Sometimes they are. It's meant to feel like a vision of the heavens, or heavenly gardens.

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Mihrab From a religious school dated A.H. 755 / A.D. 1354-55 Iran, Isfahan Mosaic of polychrome-glazed cut tiles on stonepaste body, set into mortar; 11 ft. 3 1⁄16 in. x 9 ft. 5 11⁄16 in. (343.1 x 288.7 cm), Wt. 4,500 lbs.

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This poem talks about the similarity that almost all cultures have in common, this being the presence of deities, gods. The poem mentions the ideas of Monotheism and Polytheism. It also mentions the importance and effects of places of worship, such as mosques. This poem has a rhyme scheme that travels throughout the entirety of the poem. It also uses personification and simile. It tells about tales as old as time, and how even though they have been around for a long time, their texts are still as impactful and alive as we are today. This poem teaches the reader about how the people of early civilizations, would pray to whatever god they could manifest for any need they could possibly ever have.

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When writing this poem it was hard for me to use what the site was giving me. The things this picture represented were quite difficult concepts like praying. The polychrome-glazed cut was one of the word that just seemed absurd to fit into a poem. The poem ended up being very short, but I think that even though is wasn't long it represented what the picture meant very well.