Fasting hearths
Reema Hamza: Poem ‘Fasting hearths’
O Truth—
why have you wed yourself
to waiting?
Shall I reclaim my face
from the charred mirrors?
or from the dying crescents that scattered behind their ruins ?
How many treacherous stars
hide in your veil?
Only after groans and dust,
as I chased your sleeping shadow
through mazes softened by surrender,
did I know—
you arrived last,
from a dusk steeped in blood.
The survivors of war whispered:
You are the soot of days,
stuck to the ends of our severed fingers.
How many cities
lulled their bells
into the thirst of silence,
birthing in secrecy
within eyes emptied by loss—
as night slumbers
on hands wrapped in the mute of tomorrow?
How many cities,
carrying firewood in the virility of flame,
are born aloud
in stories already devoured,
And our names—
lost footsteps
treading the cunning path of fear.
The soil in our dreams.
Above them, the light flickered and died.
The eyes of our children sprouted blame—
their voices pale
at the feast of elegy.
And even the dawn
came brief.
When will I gather my trembling self
from the arteries of time—
a body of fire and kindling,
of what famine years have ravaged?
When will the wheat awaken,
so I may inscribe my birth?
My name is your heart—
and your heart,
the most spacious of names.
