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| (Wiki Commons: from ChiralJon https://flickr.com/photos/69057297@N04/35353492476) |
Brigid, Goddess and Saint, Woman of Fire,
this is my prayer, born of ashes and anger,
of sorrow and screams,
of falling babies and families burned.
Where are Mohammed Neda, Ali Yawar
Jafari,
Karen Bernard, Lucas James?
This is my prayer.
Where are Rania Ibrahim and her daughters,
Fathia and Hania, Stefan Anthony Mills,
Ligaya
Moore?
This is my prayer.
Rise from the flames used against your children,
through lack of care, greed, ignorance, indifference,
for the poor, for the ‘othered’, for us.
How dare they disrespect your Holy Fire!
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| (Wiki Commons: Natalie Oxford https://twitter.com/Natalie_Oxford/status/874834909004746753/photo/1) |
Where are Zainab Dean and her son, Jeremiah?
He was two years old.
This is my prayer.
Where are Khadija Saye and her mother, Mary Mendy?
This is my prayer.
Where are Gary Maunders, Mohammad
Alhajali,
Hesham Rahman, Tony Disson, Sheila Smith?
This is my prayer.
Burn the faces of the fallen through onto
the retinas of the guilty,
brand the names onto their skin.
Teach them to respect the power that they hold,
the trust that they’ve been given,
the babies placed in their care
by mothers & fathers fleeing poverty & war,
only to burn in a pyre not of their making.
Blameless. Nameless.
Where are Mariem Elgwahry and her mother,
Suhar,
Jessica Urbano Ramirez, Deborah Lamprell?
This is my prayer.
Where are Nadia Laureda, Steve Power,
Dennis Murphy, Amal Ahmedin and Amaya Tuccu?
Where is Isaac Paulos?
Where is Isaac Paulos?
This is my prayer
Where are Marco Gottardi, and Gloria
Trevisan,
Mohammed Nurdu?
This is my prayer.
Where are Fouzia el-Wahabi, her husband, Abdul Aziz,
Nur Huda and Mehdi, Yasin?
This is my prayer.
Where are Nadia Loureda, Maria Del Pilar
Burton,
Berkti Haftom and her son, Biruk?
This is my prayer.
Where are Nura Jamal, her husband,
Hashim,
their children, Yahya, Firdaws, Yaqub?
Where is Kamru Miah?
Where is Kamru Miah?
This is my prayer.
This is my prayer.
Elen, Goddess and Saint. Eleu, Woman of Light,
this is my prayer, born of darkness and tears,
of helplessness and rage,
of missing posters and silence
banging on windows to
be broken,
choking in stairwells to be heard.
choking in stairwells to be heard.
Shine a light on the powerful,
on their greed and their schemes,
on their scapegoating of the poor and the different,
on their belief that we won’t see what they have done,
or turn away, or be worn down, or cease to care,
or blame the dead,
or go numb.
Make us fully alive to continue the fight.
Make us fully alive to continue the fight.
Remind them that this is not their world
to be done with as they wish. It is yours. It is ours.
WE are not theirs to do with as they wish.
Fatima Afrasehabi was not theirs to do with as they
wished.
Her sister, Sakina was not theirs to do with as they
wished.
Nadia Choucair was not theirs to do with as they
wished,
her husband, Baseem Choukair,
their children, Mierna, Fatima, Zainab,
their grandmother, Sirria was not theirs to do with as they wished.
their children, Mierna, Fatima, Zainab,
their grandmother, Sirria was not theirs to do with as they wished.
Raymond Bernard was not theirs to do with as they wished.
Brigid and Elen, Goddesses-Saints, Holy Sun Women,
teach us the ways of healing fire, let us burn with
justice’s flame.
Let it never go out, let us burn with the love of it,
and you, and them.
Where are Majorie Vital and her son,
Ernie,
Joseph Daniels, Logan Gomes, whose first breaths were cyanide,
Khadija Khalloufi, Abdeslam Sebbar,
Fathia Ahmed and her son,
Abufars Ibrahim?
This is my prayer.
Where are Omar Belkadi, Farah Hamdan,
Malak, Leena, and Tamzin who lived?
This is my prayer.
Where are Mohamednur Tuccu,
Husna and Rebaya Begum,
Mohammed Hanif,
Mohammed Hamid?
This is my prayer.
Where are Vincent Chiejina, Hamid Kani,
a ‘woman’ unnamed,
all the
unnamed, the disappeared?
This is my prayer
Let
their names be branded on our skin. Let the flame of justice burn.
Let your holy fire be holy once more. This is my prayer.
Aho mitake oyasin,
amen, blessed be. Inshallah.
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| (Wiki Commons: ChiralJon https://flickr.com/photos/69057297@N04/35237131601) |
"Did they die, or us?"
