Ai’dah is a poem that is very personal to me. Not really because it is something that happened to me but more so because it is something that is still happening that show how we have failed as a society. This work is inspired by what I understood of the events that happened following the Unrest in Syria.
For, every such person who has been a victim of Human Terror, Persecutions and a failure of States at large!
Her absence makes a difference, a diamond precious and rare,
trying to find her again, into nowhere I stare.
Grey is the sky, cloudy and dull,
farmlands are barren, dry and lull,
was I not just as guilty, as everyone was,
for what had just happened, I too am a cause.
Of letters received, just a month ago,
her’s was one, and I read what she wrote.
In the middle of devastations unseen,
they were crippled by destructions obscene,
she was hiding right there, when she saw her mother die,
she was so numb, she could not even cry.
She was twelve when this happened,
a year now, and she lived abandoned,
not a natural calamity,
it was human brutality,
Gunshots, bombardments, there was no place of recourse,
no water, food or shelter, they ran out of all resource.
A group led her family, they decided to run,
to go out of the city, before the morning Sun,
the city was in an upheaval,
even the weather lethal,
but of what was coming ahead, little were they aware,
the town was besieged by armed men, who killed with no care.
Scared was this little girl, Ai’dah, she held her dad’s hand tight,
but he knew his death was imminent in the fight,
He kissed her, into the stack of hay,
next to them, he threw her away.
Everyone killed, mission fulfilled, the armed men moved ahead,
bloodshed red, some beheaded, they were all there lying dead.
Rescued from there, by a stranger unknown,
she was brought to a place, safer than her own,
wounded was she, down to her core,
nothing was like it was before,
the World watched the tyranny, all the persecutions ignored,
the war never ended, nor was peace ever restored.
To the President’s office she came, the first time, her I saw,
from the war, from this insanity, she wanted us to withdraw,
stolen probably from the battlefield,
she took out the gun, that she had concealed.
A moment of silence followed the violence, and she collapsed right there,
Her I retrieved, the President was relieved, for her life there was no one to care,
Ignorant they stood there in despair
Her absence makes a difference, a diamond precious and rare,
trying to find her again, into nowhere I stare,
All that happened, just a day before,
all that I need, is a chance once more,
for I don’t wanna be guilty, just as everyone was,
I don’t wanna let it happen and be an ignorant cause.
