Sufi Tears

Sufi Mosque on the Sinai Peninsula (European Press photo) 

"Militants Kill 305 at Sufi Mosque in Egypt’s Deadliest Terrorist Attack"

(Headline from The New York Times)

Sufi  Tears

They opened doors to a world

Where sunlight lifts the heart

And words are like

The sweetest garden nectar.

The Sufi’s song to the Beloved

Created a space

Where all can find peace.

Their poets

Brought wholeness

To a fragmented world.

They told the world

Of a divine realm,

Just behind the breath

Of every searching soul,

Where the Beloved offers companionship

Throughout the measure of our days.

Now zealot bombs have shattered

That sacred space,

Spilling blood

And taking lives

In a mindless cacophony

Of shrapnel and smoke.

Mothers wail

As bodies lay scattered.

Bitter grief

Seizes the chests of husbands and fathers

While the Beloved weeps nearby.

What world is this

That cannot endure beauty,

Whose sons must shatter every light?

  

Sadness descends upon us

As we grieve

For our Sufi kin.

We would almost

Despair for our own future.

Yet in our sorrow,

We reach out

To those Sufi souls we seek to comfort.

It is they who will continue to nurture

The song of the Beloved,

And it is they who will dress

The wounds of the world

Until our violence ceases.

                                                ~ CK

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