I posted this on 29th July 2011
and sadly, five years later, nothing's changed for the people of Syria.
Blessed
Surrender
The silence unnerves her
A once bustling boulevard
Thrash strewn amidst jostling
crowd
Of whom there were none this day
Slowly she walks
Afraid of hearing her own
shuffling
Past what was once, what, a
tent?
A smoldering heap, charred
tinder
At the centre of the stillness
A hulk of a steely monster
stood, once arrogant
A mangled cage, trace echoes of
scream
Of its occupants dying a
lifetime of death
Pass the iron horror she trudges
ahead
Directionless, willed only by
the need to move
Somewhere, anywhere
Where there is a soul
Kindred or otherwise
A soul she ask a soul she seeks
Except for the hulking wreckage
where she gagged a vomit
The air is pure is clean is sure
A sun soaked clarity of a
surround
Alas there was only sight but
not a single sound
Except for a rustling of wind
ruffled debris
Other than a gust of strewn dust
A square, of tents in people
pushed to the brink
Finding their voices found long
subdued
Only to be mutedly strangled
Tyrannical hands of vile might
Soon is Ramadhan*
Is it not she thinks?
A month for shackling of lust of
pride of desires
A month of peace of penance of
repentance
A month of endless joys in
blessed surrender
Ten nights of fruitful embracing
of faith
If only
There was someone
Anyone to welcome
A month so waited
She trudges
Wondering why there was no scent
When death was too many
Too plenty too heart rending
Perhaps its Syuhada then
She thinks
She walks
She ponders
Dedicated to the lives lost in
for making their voices heard.
* Ramadhan will also be upon us
soon. I dare not be flippant of such grotesque irony.
