Please Invite me to your Arbaeen my dear Imam
I remember quietly reciting your ziyarah after fajr prayers,
my tired sunken eyes reading line after line,
wishing I could rest,
but you knew what my heart craved;
so you invited me to your home of Karbala.
Not just one time but three times.
But my dear imam, I have a complaint
You’ve never invited me to walk for you.
Is it because of my slow whispered recitations?
My fear of crowds and the heat?
My heart now yearns to walk for you,
every heartbeat pulses with your call of
of “is there anyone to help me.”
Let me be the loyalty embodied by your 72.
My hijab yearns to feel the scathing sun
to burn from the heat.
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For my breath to be caught with the hot fabric.
So that I can hold tightly to the symbol of sayedda zainab (a.s.).
I want my feet to ache from going towards you.
Because I yearn to gain the forgiveness you graced Hurr with.
So that in every step I plead in pain
of hoping to never lose you.
My lungs yearn to be engulfed with the soil of Karbala.
To feel the dirt that bore witness the thirst of your family.
I aspire to have the bravery encapsulated by the backbone of your essence, hazrat abbas (a.s.),
To have my strength fail, but my heart go towards you.
The kind of pull that only be described by Imam Sadiq (a.s.)
who said it’s love worth a thousand levels.
Walking to you isn’t merely a tool of remembrance.
Walking to you is a stance against injustice.
Like a silent army ready to heed the call of the imam of our time.
Ya aba Abdillah, give your lovers permission to walk for you.
40 days is too long for a home our hearts long for.
Author’s note: My friend (Zahrah) and I wrote wrote this earlier in the month when arbaeen had come. And I know for myself, my heart yearned to go but I didn’t get the chance to. So that’s the context of how we felt when writing this poem. Anyways, inshallah I hope one day all of us lovers of the ahlul bayt get to experience the beautiful walk from Najaf to Karbala. And I hope you enjoyed this poem, please keep me in your prayers. (update: lol I ended up going the year after. my wish was accepted lol much faster than I thought.)
