Ah, a Mother’s Sigh

‘Ah, a Mother’s Sigh’

Ah, a mother’s sigh,

ah, a mother’s sorrow,

ah, the patience that turns to stone in a father’s breast and does not crumble.

Have you not seen?

A mother plunging straight into a river to save her child, without thinking of death; for in that moment her child is her whole world.

Have you not seen? A father taking bread from his own mouth, making his body a shield, and silently laying his life before his family

without his name being written anywhere.

You made a mistake. You built a trap and fell into its depths yourselves.

You killed the fathers; the children rose. You killed the children;

the mothers stood firm.

You wanted to break the mothers,

but their names rose from the earth.

Blood cannot wash away memory.

Bullets cannot kill love. Prison cannot silence a mother’s sigh.

You imagined death was the end;

but their deaths became our beginning.

Bring down whatever you hold in your hands.

Pour all your darkness over us.

We will grow out of this very night.

And one day, not as a promise,

but because it must, a dawn will come that no longer asks your permission.

Ah, a mother’s sigh; for

for if it rises,

no wall

will shelter you.