Today my father's friend passed.
Today my friend's father passed.

Today we washed him,
turned him this way and that
on that cold steel bed in the masjid's
morgue. We bathed him and dried him,
and his sons sobbed as they wrapped him.

Today, my father emptied a whole vial
of zorium on his friend, a perfume
ten years in the waiting to be used—
his rizq made its way to him, even as
he was laid down into his wooden bed.

Circled around his shrouded coffin,
some woman of the household cried
"sabar ni thati" as another hushed her
kindly and told her not to cry, perhaps for
her own sake as her sabar too was tearing.

He never picked a fight in school,
my father told his younger son, among
other tales of their long and strong friendship,
and the son tried a weak smile.

Even I shed a tear seeing his sons when
over my own grandmother I hadn't cried
half that much—losing a father hurts hard,
and seeing I might loose mine without
ailment's notice hits deep.

Now people pull in to pray for Shuaib
while other Mullas sit together huddled,
some recite Yasin and others try to and weep.

This is the brevity of life, though he is
fortunate to have left behind who grieve
and they too are fortunate to have his body
to dig him a home and put him to sleep.

There is little we can tell to the living
and much we can do for the dead, and it is
as those who are given glad tidings say:
from God he came and to Him he returns.



© Walyullah