The Shepherd

Hamzah Taleb

There’s a shepherd

somewhere in the dust,

far enough to hear no slogans,

close enough to smell the smoke.

He sings, not for the sheep,

but for himself.

His songs outlive the cities.

He once came down from the hills.

Once.

He listened.

And what did he hear?

Merchants selling virtue like lentils,

poets drunk on their own couplets,

priests counting coins in the name of mercy.

So he left.

Let the righteous choke on their sermons.

Let the armies bury themselves.

Let the flags burn.

He drinks water pulled from dry wells.

Eats bread without a name on it.

Sleeps without a ceiling or a god to flatter.

And when he sees us,

killing in the name of progress,

lying in the name of peace,

weeping as performance

He smiles, but not kindly.

The shepherd is not waiting for us to change.

He is only watching

to see how long we can pretend

We haven’t already failed.

Published in Issue No. 11, Custos Verborum, August 1st, 2025.

Hamzah Taleb is a poet, editor, and emerging legal scholar based in Toronto. Published widely in journals across Canada, The United States of America, and the Middle East his work explores themes of love, memory, resistance, and the poetics of displacement. He is the founder and Editor in Chief of Muses of Justice, a scholarly journal at York University. He has been profiled for his artistic and scholarly contributions by media outlets in Toronto.