Death

It is the ultimate reality.

We all know we'll die one day, yet how effortlessly we forget it!

We do not know if we'll live tomorrow, yet how meticulously we plan months ahead and how beautifully do we dream of the years to come!

I Grieve

I Grieve

By: Yasmin Mogahed

I lifted my head

Once more

Only to see

The sun had set,

The trees had slept,

And they’d all gone home

I grieve.

The sky that was clear

is now covered with fog.

My path, I no longer see.

Why try…when it’s all so gray?

I grieve.

Today I grieve

For what’s been lost.

My forgotten people,

still on their knees

before a snow god in spring

I grieve.

They’ve forgotten that prayer

And to whom they should call.

The Essence replaced

by mundane ritual,

empty symbols.

Their hearts… so tired,

jaded and worn

I grieve.

We are a people

defeated…but not conquered.

And somehow

I feel my blood return.

I will stand.

I will try.

And from beyond my grief,

I will see…

There are a people you can’t enslave.

A loyalty…you can’t buy.

For a land may be occupied…

but never a soul.

From beyond my tears

I’ll understand…

Today my people weep.

But tomorrow…Death will die,

as their tears give birth to a land

where…“on them shall be no fear

nor shall they grieve” (2:262).

Act Now!!!

Is the world going to sit still and watch what's going to happen to Gaza and Palestine??

 
Do something now, before it's too late! People are not simply dying over there, they are being butchered mercilessly!

 Including little kids, even small babies! When is the world going to open its eyes against this injustice to humanity? When will the UN put an end to Israel's atrocities against the very people whose homeland they have encroached and made their own? 

When will the Jews realise that people of Palestine are not the ones to pay for the crime of Nazis? Arabs did not torture Jews or gas them from concentration camps! Dachau, Belsen and Auschwitz were not designed and executed by Palestinians! They are human beings, just like the Jews persecuted by Hitler! Palestinians have as much right to live as anyone else in the world!!!

So act now, Humanity! Wake up, open your eyes! Ask yourself whether this is fair, ask yourself where's justice in all these! 

Don't act as if you can't see these tears!

How can you shut your eyes to this father's grief?

Join your hands in solidarity with the people of Palestine! Lend a hand, wipe a tear or at least say a prayer for peace!  

The Rain in my Heart

It has been a wonderful day.. Thank you, Allah, for letting us have beautiful days even as people in other parts of the world are suffering from hurricanes and floods.

We had a bit of rain, the kind that comes and goes. There was a cool breeze and even a little fog. There was something special about it all... As I was walking up the stairs to my class (ours is an old college set amidst a lot of trees), I felt this urge to capture that one moment in a glass case and bury it in a wet spot in my heart so that it will be alive for as long as I live. I think it was partly due to the tiny yellow leaves and red manchadi (that is to say, redbead or coral-wood) seeds lying around, their beauty enhanced many fold by the rain..  Patches of sky reflected in the clear puddles on the path also captivated me.

I felt this almost intolerable urge to walk on to the sky- how wonderful it would be if one could simply take a  walk in the sky, just like that!

I wanted to be the rain, falling slowly and rhythmically into the yearning earth, wetting its depths and filling many hearts..

I wanted to be like the breeze that gently blew my hair through my scarf and entered my heart.

I wanted to simply walk like that through the same path, over and over again, with people I love.

And knowing it to be utterly impossible, I wanted that moment to never end.

It has stopped raining now, but not in my heart. For me, it still rains, rhythmically,  soothingly, cooling my insides, making me yearn for the innumerable moments from my past that I cherish, making me wish if I were a child again, if only to have another rain bath from the terrace of my grandmother's house..

But then, such is life. It will all be true, but only in my heart where it still rains...