Screams punctuated by…terrible staccato rhythm…/ice molten metal fire streaming through corpses of clay…/canvas tent decorated by blood of…that woman…/Khadija wraps Ismailia in…black burkha…/and with trembling terror…/…she …looks away…from lifeless form…/of her birth mother…/cursing the robber who stole her soul…/and with…mindless strength…ignoring crippling horror…/she wades through congealed blood river…/staining her hand…she holds son of her land...and emerges into sun and sand sodden fray…/bray of demon donkeys…greets her…/surrounded by janjaweed…she does not get far…/they seek to snuff out her seed…/seeing no escape from… circle of death she…falls to her knees choking on desert dust.../she whispers to the one true man she knows…Allahu Akbar!…/her praise of her Maker silenced by sword of her slayer…/her body is broken…/son buried beneath her is… quiet…/she…
… she begins to crawl….
…seeking to save the life that sprung from hellish existence…/the riders are gone…/wails rend the air as…her folk emerge to meet her there…/she breathes final words of instruction…/she wishes him well…she wishes he’d live to hear tell… of how…/with blessing for him on her lips.../his mother passed to eternity…
…as…shadow of child souls darken the earth…/song of my slain sisters…/brings this story to close…I sit in empty schoolyard surrounded by tortured silence… mocking nursery rhyme…/song out of time…/weeping and wondering how sun ever set on such chilling sound.
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