Syria's Eid

Eid Al-Fitr (after the fasting month of Ramadan) comes this year (2012) just as the two Eids of last years, without the (Happy) title. Syria is still under bombardment by its butcher ruler and those who are supporting him inside and abroad.

Syria’s Eid

By Tarif Youssef Agha

I’m saying it as Abu Al-Taib (a late famous Syrian poet) once did

“Oh Eid, in what face did you come back?”

As my people are either refugees or threatened

Neither safety is close, nor far is death

People who spend evenings with fear and hunger

And have dates with massacres in the mornings

Bodies have rested and moved to their graves

And bodies stayed behind to be tortured by iron and fire

Every time a martyr leaves, another one follows

Wedding sounds are now used just in funerals

The sky is raining shells sent by unworthy ones

The ground is growing mines planted by anonymous ones

But barking, just like half-men, doesn’t scare anyone

Dogs aren’t lions, and cowards aren’t fighters

For forty years, they hijacked us by the hoax of opposing (the west)

So they took happiness from us, and humiliated us as slaves

They ruled us by starvation and by the slogans of resistance

Agony became our drink and crumbs our food

They slaughtered the free men and women

They burned the country and chanted “For the glory of Assad”

The worlds’ eyes and ears were closed to us

The hearts turned to stone, consciousnesses distorted by wrinkles

This is the Eid of Syria today

Neither the children are celebrating, nor is the Eid happy

***

Tarif Youssef-Agha

An Expatriate Arab Syrian Writer & Poet

Member of the ‘Syrian Revolutionary Writers Assembly’

Houston, Texas

Friday August 17^th. 2012

http://sites.google.com/site/tarifspoetry