My first attempt at poetry, inspired by the unspeakable tragedy of Karbala.

They whisper the name Hussain

An impatient silence,
A terrible reality,
From out of the seeming nothingness,

Wind whistles across the dunes,
As haunting as it is foreboding,
The stale air is desperate to leave,

The wide, empty sky above,
East to west, north and south,
A terrifying canopy of blue,

It’s the end of the world,
The sky seems too close,
The future, too soon.

Desolate and deserted,
Save the tortured souls,
Brave yet so vulnerable.

The sun descends from its zenith,
An uncanny hand of time,
Counting the impending minutes.

The shadows grow long,
A creeping darkness,
and the sands turn black,

From across the horizon it comes,
Evil dances its wicked waltz,
The air is heavy with dread,

For in but a moment,
Time is to stand deafeningly still,
In a sinister sweep of fate.

It strikes,
A terrible crimson rain,
And the sky is a pall of death.

That moment,
When everything was wrong,
To last for eternity,

The agonising torment,
When the angels wept,
And history was written in blood.

An endless pain,
The echoed screams of the martyrs,
And the broken howls of those left behind.

Unjust and ugly,
The earth and sky fold,
Refusing to bear witness,

To a macabre tide,
The wave subsides,
And the empty loneliness.

Time has stood still,
The world is no more,
The page of fate turns,

And silence,
Time moves on,
With the fear of worldly wants.

Lest we ever forget,
The winds across the Karbala dunes,
They whisper the name Hussain.

For coverage of the commemoration of Ashura and the tragedy of Karbala, stay tuned to UrbanDuniya.com and UrbanDuniya’s YouTube channel tomorrow, 24th October 2015.