Awaken the Memories

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 …..