INNA LILLAHI WA INNA ELAYHI RAJ’EOON

 By: Sister Fiddha

The tongue. so effuse stills at your name.

The eyes, so enraptured by the beauty of man,
overflow with tributes.

The ears so acquiescent to the gossip which filters through
become rivers, in which only the water of your pain, may flow.

And the heart, the heart beats like the war drum that sounded in,
Karbala, the day you were shaheed.

BOOM! The image of you holding your slaughtered son in your arms.

BOOM! Abbas' cry as the arrow pierced your daughter's hope, and he fell from his horse,
limbless, prostrate in his heart wrenching agony.

BOOM! The tearing of Zainab's hijab as the tents went up in flames.

Ah, the crushing,

screaming,

clawing,

desparate,

bottomless,

agony,
dimmed by nothing. Not even the strongest anaesthesia.

The MEMORY of my journey to Syria, to visit the place, where many years ago now, your daughter was a prisoner.
All signs of the torrent of burning agony have dissipated. What's left is a handful of women, wailing and beating their chests. The posters along the wall, her flayed skin, the stone pathway, her burning feet, Yazid's palace, her trial.
Did you hear her khutbah on the streets of Damascus?

The fingers stop typing, trying desparately to dig deeper to bury under the sand of your tomb but they keep missing. Like stray bullets my words miss their target, skimming the bottomless pit of grief trying to emulate the gift of my mother's passionate tears and my father's true conviction.

I love you. But I would not have died with you.
Hur repented with his son, his wife and his wealth. I bring my love and lay it like a wreath at your grave.
Aware that it is not enough.