As the pages of history are turned

Their blood-stained pages not yet dry

New pages are always added

Old ones under new ones hide

 

A hasty reader’s attention

Doesn’t past the current page

What was read is half a blur

Comprehension, difficult to gauge

 

Just how the birth of a child

Desecrates the memory of the dead

Forgotten are the victims of old

As same enemies rear their heads

 

Is it then true sincerity?

To remember to heart only Syria?

What happened to Afghanistan?

To Bosnia and to Chechnya?

 

Aren’t the breasts of mothers,

In Somalia, still running dry?

Don’t the mouths of newborns

In Fallujah, unmoistened lie?

 

What happened to old Libya?

Are its people doing well?

Palestine is still in its place

Has Yemen’s unrest quelled?

 

Or is it because today’s concern

Is blasted over tv screens

Woldwide furore supporting it

Showing corpses, spleens and screams

 

Or is it because poor Afghanis

Have a different shade of skin?

Are Chinese Muslims too far apart

For our hearts to let them in?

 

There were no lavish fundraisers

No dinners or fiery speeches

When just 14, Abir was raped

Her Iraqi family watching her screetches

 

Are we naught but sheep then?

Seen as nothing more but tools?

To be maneuvered like common infants

And be found as extraordinary fools

 

Our allegiance is not defined

By the daily news report

All Muslims are ours

Their lands and all their ports

 

Till then, this is for the unnamed victim,

To the unnamed orphan, all of them,

With respect, to every unnamed widow,

Is dedicated, this unnamed poem.