Yesterday was the day marking the end of 40 days of mourning that follow the anniversary of the death of Imam Hussein. Imam Muhamed al-Baqir (as) states that the heavens wept over Imam Hussain (as) for forty mornings, rising red and setting red. But for most Muslims this is not the end of the mourning it continues throughout the year , for this sad occasion my sister Hala has written a poem which I promised to publish so here it comes:
Awaken the memories
On a day like this skies wept rivers of blood
and everything pure was slaughtered
On a day like this the holy Quran was heaved upon a spear.
and Fatimah was brought back to this lugubrious world
Oh Fatimah revive your sorrow and pain for Muharam is here
Oh Fatima ignite our hearts with fire and light
that cast us with grief and tears of anger;
let us awaken memories engraved in our hearts
Memories that we may only feel,
Memories that bear our minds to the land of agony and ordeals
to Karbala to Zeinab and Rabab, to the frightened orphans, to the broken hearts.
So lonely underneath the shelter of the darkest night
covering their divine faces and their silent cries
Crying for Abbas crying for Ali al Akbar
crying for the master of martyrs and the third Imam,
Yet no one hears, no one is there and nothing is left,
but their holy bodies laying still on the warm sand,
as if it is not enough for them to see the headless body of their master and lord
battered by the horses hooves, and his holy head on the top of the javelin
calling the eternal spectrum, calling the eternal observer
This was the harshest victory of all the day blood triumphed the swards …..
