These poems were submitted by Rashidah Ismaili as part of the 2015 PEN World Voices Online Anthology. They form part of a book-length collection of narrative poems entitled In Shallah. The collection begins with forty poems listed only by numbers, which signify the days of traditional mourning in both Islamic and African culture.
Rashidah Ismaili’s events: The Witnesses, Opening Panel: Discussing Diaspora
1
It happened yesterday.
Yesterday it happened.
It happened in the yesterdays
of yester years, this thing
that haunts me.
A sound broke out
against a sun-filled day.
Bombastic, blasts
against a dust-filled sky.
Dust blocks the sun.
Dark. It happened in the dark.
In the silence of night-dark
when sleep takes in the heart
and lets the head rest.
Last night and all the nights
before the last
it happened in the dark.
It rained yesterday.
Rain-cloud-dark sky
of last yesterday
when hope was high
and dreams floated
in autumnal days.
It is raining.
There are huge droppings.
Pulverized pellets fall
onto a buried graveyard
and into waiting arms.
The dead sleep nude.
Centuries have robbed coats.
Dresses have been discarded
for non-essential yardage.
Here and there a hand reaches
to grasp a falling file,
to input data into a burnt-out
hard drive that crashes above
a supervisor’s head.
That happened yesterday.
Yesterday it was to be
the birthday of the founder
who eats an early croissant
with imported smoked salmon.
He, the founder, lost his way.
Yesterday the founder forgot
the way to winding stairs
tried to recapture an athletic past,
ran headlong without quarterback
to make a final touchdown.
40
Today the waiting ends.
Yesterday’s mourning ends.
Clear skies of fall cover streets
scarred and empty.
Today the current returns.
Wind echoes in hollow towers
of old and abandoned minarets.
A tinny voice rings out calling
calling to prayers those who
yet have faith left in emaciated
parched bodies. Slow steps
find their way from water tap
to masjids. Today in the courtyard
of an old, old masjid where
blue and green tiles, chipped
and cracked speak to horror
sufferance. An old voice
raises up the words,
invoking a Presence
some feel was absent
a month or so ago
when the sky was blotted out
by a mushroom spread of darkness
that choked southbound birds.
Children remembering a bad dream
run believing a horde of ghosts
were chasing them. Come now.
It is time to go down to the river.
It is time to cast off dark shrouds.
It is time to dip in the cool water.
It is time for lamman.
Come, wear this djelleba of pale green.
Here, let the scent of attar
discreetly cover the stench of decomposition.
Come, tie your hair under a white hijab.
Come, it is time to end the idat.
It is time for smiles and dances.
Fires wait in crumbling back yards
for old and tired clothes of sad times.
Today, a widow plucks the soft puff
of a once-was-skirt-pants
all piled in a heap left
on the other side of tomorrow.
A woman says to the air.
“Come husband, father, brother, son,
uncle, all. Sink yourselves in tin tubs
of warmed water. Let the odor
of tortuous hours alone, in battle,
distance, be removed from your skin.
Ah, Ahmed, come to me and I shall
greet you in a new shawl. And I will
rub you in the attar of a thousand roses.
You will sing to me in a voice rarely used.
Tonight we shall feast and sing of new times.
The night approaches in a red ball
and your arms are painted by the sun.
It sinks slowly to the other side of the world.
Come little ones and eat.
Come eat, there is enough.
Tonight we eat halal and our dreams be blessed.
Tonight when the sun sets,
tonight when the moon ascends,
tonight when The Call comes
we shall race to answer.
And I shall run with you my sisters
and laugh. Ah, the sound of laughter
held back all these past days. But now
it has ended and the joy promised
comes slowly as food—unfamiliar
seeks a place in flattened bellies.
It has ended, the enforced fast
that sought to starve us all.
We are here and here we are.
This land under our feet is ours.
With our hands we will build.
Tomorrow when the moon sinks,
the sun rises, we will become
shadows moving, moving
against the landscape
of our sleep-filled nights.
We will plant and water
this our land. Our land, me—
I am waiting for you
to come up a hilly road
singing, singing.
And I will meet you
and throw petals
from a thousand roses
and stand watching them
fall at your feet.”