Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
| my experience--a poem |
|---|
| jannah |
| 04/09/01 at 14:40:40 |
| A forwarded msg From: reemos@ucla.edu assalamu alaikum, i pray taht everyone is in the best state of health and iman insha'Allah. i recently came back from a delegation to iraq and subhan'Allah i saw the stats of the kids dying and starving in the form of real people with real faces and real names. even though i am by no means a poet, i wrote this poem when i was there. just to give you some background, we were in basra which is by far one of the worst hit areas in iraq. we stopped in a very poor area and all the children began to surround us, with the same look of awe and wonderment taht we got wherever we went riding in our big cars with our big cameras. one of the brothers who was with us had began to give out pens, pens taht we would throw away without a second thought and literally he was almost stampeded by the kids who were fighting each other to get the pens. we were told to get into our cars, so as to be "protected." and as we continued to ride through the small town kids ran next to the car, yelling "give us a pen. please give us a pen." at that moment i never felt so much shame and disgust at my own life as seeing kids so deprived, without shoes in their feet, with rivers of sewage running between their tiny homes, only wanting a pen. and all we could do was t! ! ell them through the window we don't have any pens...we're sorry...may Allah uplift them and enter all of them into firdos and replace their pain in this dunya with comfort and relief in the akhira. amin A PEN Khalah, give me a pen khalah Please all I want is a pen khalah. A life deprived of dignity A soul deprived of hope. They stand there, hundreds of faceless children, Hands stretched out, begging and pleading for their connection to the outside world. A pen... Two more bombed out, another falls dead of starvation. But a pen khalah, if you please I just want a pen. For shame child, don't bother these people with your dirty face and ugly attire. Don't you know you were destined to live a life of poverty and deprivation. Don't you know the first word you uttered was misery. Don't you see how you have been marginalized, conceptualized into a beast inferior to these people by every means. Now child, leave and go waste your life away with your nobodys amongst your nothingness. No dignity for you. No hope for you. No pen for you. |
Individual posts do not necessarily reflect the views of Jannah.org, Islam, or all Muslims. All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the poster and may not be used without consent of the author.The rest © Jannah.Org |