Candles And Prayers Keeping The Light

• Sumeya Abdirahman, Grade 9
• Poetry
• 2014

The elders awake and talking,
Outside danger stalking;
Should the families stay?
Or try and get away.

In the rout, the lights in Gaza City are out,
And the families sit in candle light a bit;
And the gunships make a hit,
And there is a mighty blast and all are aghast.

Somewhere in Gaza City, a house is smashed,
A home of stone and glass is trashed;
Bodies shredded with shrapnel,
Lives cuffed and snuffed.

The families talk of the children they shelter,
And the need to keep them safe from the bombs’ palters;
What they should do, if should come the call,
From the Israelis to evacuate before a bomb’s fall.

To where would they run? In whose home would they find refuge?
With them, what would they take, in such a decision so huge?
Probably only time to gather their loved ones,
And into the streets, for their lives to run.

The smell of smoke drifts in the air,
The sound of bomb blast makes them scare;
Ambulances’ sirens all around,
The cry of neighbours in the sound.

Suddenly the phone rings,
To one another the elders cling;
It is an uncle calling from across the city,
And around the room there is a circle of pity.

He tells of a bomb falling,
The concrete splintering; the steel mesh buckling;
Top storey crushing, loved ones calling,
Body parts from under slabs out tucking.

Of a sudden, the world is a whirl of madness,
The people are sunk in sadness;
There seems no reason for the harm,
The faithful pray for Allah’s balm.

Not a family in the city untouched,
Destruction, injury and death so much;
Like the bubble of happiness,
Pricked and pierced to bring life to less.

The elders dare to peer from the window.
On a city street, that once hummed with activity;
They keep their heads low,
The street a jigsaw of rubble, smoke in immensity.

The family is safe,
But feel like a body amputated;
Across the city, cousins to death fated,
To this family, like their body lacerated.

What is done to others they share,
Like a pain cut deep in them;
For the suffering they care,
For many wound, to the body of Islam.
The brotherhood of the faith,
Crying and bleeding in the night;
Pleading to Allah for respite,
Reading the Quran for what his words saith.

The servants of Allah,
Whispering Insha’ Allah;
In the midst of war bewildered,
But keeping their faith unhindered.

Gaza City, stripes of yellow and red,
Across the black and smoke of the night;
Buildings wrecking, lives shed,
Candles and prayers keeping the light.