This is the poet who comes to Medina
Ummul Baneen in tears greets this visitor
* * *
Ummul Baneen with a voice of sorrow speaks
As the tears of a mother flow down her cheeks
She stands an old woman so aged and so weak
And tells the poet I am Hussein’s mother
* * *
O’ poet tell me of my beloved Hussain
For I let him go and alone I remain
A mother’s son is the blood within her veins
Tell me what happened in the land Karbala
* * *
O’ Ummul Baneen the lone poet answers
We left Abbas with no hands by the river
His eye and hands both fell before his banner
And by him, Abdullah, Uthman and Jafar
* * *
She cries a scream of death as her pure heart breaks
O’ poet don’t tell me of Abbas’s fate
Nor my children only Hussein I await
For Abbas was born to die for his brother
* * *
The poet answers with death upon his tongue
Hussein was left in that desert all alone
Only bodies infront of him, blood and bone
Only his sons and men and children martyred
* * *
O’ Ummul Baneen in his arms his child
Helplessly it waves its arms as it wailed
And with the arrow’s sting it’s pure heart failed
And Hussein cried out O’ my son Abdullah
* * *
He fell upon the dust showered with arrows
Zaineb wailed and men’s eyes saw her shadow
As her eyes flowed with tears, rivers his blood flowed
How her heart broke, we can but only wonder
* * *
Shimr’s lust for his blood, he sat on his chest
His cursed sword on Hussein’s pure neck it rested
And the neck you once kissed by him was severed
And wail on you, O’ dear widow of Haider
* * *
Ummul Baneen cries out O’ my Lord accept
Karbala’s dust with my son’s blood is now wet
And to the swords and arrows my sons I’ve sent
As I am left alone here in Medina
* * *
O’ world that calls me the name Ummul Baneen
Know this name reminds me of my grief and pain
My mind circles on the sorrow of Hussein
Every time I think of him my heart shatters
* * *
I am the mother of Abbas, Hashim’s moon
I sent him for Hussein to an early tomb
I raised him so Hussein’s name is his heart’s tune
Even his hands were cut and so his banner
* * *
Were my children not four but my sons were ten
I’d still raise them to live and die for Hussein
So that this story would be heard by all men
So tears would flow upon Hussein’s neck severed
* * *
O’ Lord do not return my children to me
Instead hasten a death of grief toward me
So when my soul’s taken Hussein I shall see
With his hand he’ll take me to the hereafter
* * *
(London – 22/07/10)