1976, to the mother of a martyr

The most beautiful of mothers was the one who waited for her son
The most beautiful of mothers was she who waited,
and he returned
He returned a martyr
She wept two tears and a rose
and did not withdraw into mourning clothes
Assaad returned a martyr… a breeze of distant longing awakened his soul,
So he embraced his death and walked, parting the dawn’s haze
Alone
Dragging a heavy brokenness
We see him…
We see the silence and the yellow trees around him
the streaming bullets
And the sound of imminent collapse,
Tranquil blood rippling across the celestial dirt
The war has not ended
But he has returned
His rifle wilted
His hands at peace…
This is the moment of sleep for the soul-weary lover
Here he is now, swooping like a bird
The wind whistling in his heart
The war has not ended
yet his beloved's face plunges into the hollows of terror.
There is ample space to forget
The windows flung open to the gray wind
To memories – smoke
And Assaad, now free within his longing
Assaad was...
a lover
Assaad returned a martyr
and with him returned the dawn, the river, the mountain rose, and the moonlight shone once more on the house’s balcony
And the comrades departed then returned.
Open the doors of your grief, and enter his moonlit radiance
And pluck from his hands the birds and the wheat and the sweet thornbush.

Hassan Al-Abdallah (1943–2022) was a prominent poet and writer from the southern Lebanese town of Khiam.

This poem appears in the twenty-second issue of The New York War Crimes.