It was not just a day witnessed… by your eyes, by your eyes
Millions witness your day so… hear their cries, hear their cries
Hussain, you are not alone… your pain to millions is shown
Millions witness your day so… hear their cries, hear their cries
* * *
Between your eyelid and eye… drawn in every tear you’d cry
You’d stand alone, asking for help… and did you ever ask why?
Calamities you witnessed… left our own eyes so distressed
That we’d cry as if horses’ hooves… were on our own fathers pressed
You stood alone on that day… every love taken away
When alone you spoke to your Lord… behind you we’d come and pray
Yes, a thousand years have passed… ten thousand years it’ll last
For it lives in our memory… as if of yesterday’s past
They spoke of you as if you died… and your plight, and your plight
Instead you brought our souls to life… with your light, with your light
Your pain is not yours to own… your pain to millions is shown
Millions witness your day so… hear their cries, hear their cries
* * *
Alone, when for help you called… your loneliness we recalled
Yet your voice, it transcended time… and by it we were enthralled
A broken heart none could mend… to wind your hand you’d extend
Expecting someone to help you… brings you a silence, this wind
We watched you stand there alone… and cried out, to you we’ll come
Yet you turned away in sadness… hearing no voice and no-one
It gave us such a heartache… that when we mourn, the worlds shake
And whilst you sleep in your sadness… our grief still keeps us awake
We came running when we heard help… you needed, you needed
We begged our Lord to reach your side… and pleaded, and pleaded
For our lateness we’d atone… your pain to millions is shown
Millions witness your day so… hear their cries, hear their cries
* * *
With the rise of your day’s dawn… pictures on your eye were drawn
And when we asked for but a glimpse… uncontrollably we’d mourn
We saw a young, orphaned prince… asking your permission, since
You were the one father he had… his death challenged your patience
In your arms you held your son… and you complained to the sun
Can I not bring Ali water… not a drop rests on my tongue
We saw later, in your arms… fingers clenched by tiny palms
The infant’s neck, that you once kissed… a three-headed arrow harms
When we saw what your eyes saw we… wouldn’t sleep, wouldn’t sleep
When we would gaze at our children… we would weep, we would weep
His blood to the sky you’d thrown… your pain to millions is shown
Millions witness your day so… hear their cries, hear their cries
* * *
Asking to feel what you felt… by your remains we all knelt
Soothing your wounds with our own hands… our tears, the sun’s heat would melt
We felt on your back a weight… preyed on your innocence, hate
Not what you are, for who you are… you embraced a headless fate
From your eyes, waterless tears… every time reaches your ears
The cries of these son-less mothers… you’d cry out, “take me O’ spears!”
Every loved one was taken… you’d cry, he’d not awaken
“With your death O’ my flagbearer… now my back has been broken”
With remnants of your ink, sorrow… you would draw, you would draw
We’d follow its trail, your pain… we all saw, we all saw
You stood ageless, as we’d grown… your pain to millions is shown
Millions witness your day so… hear their cries, hear their cries
* * *
On that day, alone you stood… the trials that you withstood
Carved lessons into history… that we read and understood
You stood up to a tyrant… and withstood every moment
Of your torture, of your slaughter… and we saw your achievement
You rose up and so we rose… oppression we would oppose
And before humiliation… death we demanded and chose
We told all that death had lied… because Hussain never died
He lives on, he is immortal… for our tears, his death defied
On your day, millions of eyes… on you gaze, on you gaze
They cry hearing of your tale… and your ways, and you ways
I wonder if, then, you’d known… your pain to millions is shown
Millions witness your day so… hear their cries, hear their cries
* * *
(Najaf – 27/11/12)