How dark is the dark night
In the bleakness before twilight!

How thick and grim her shadow,
Shrouding the world in sorrow

A desolation so deep,
Only the fat and greedy sleep
Whilst multitudes writhe
In agony and strife

Clutching empty bellies and broken spines,
Their sunken, hollow eyes,
Once smouldering with defiance,
Now numbly scan the sky,
Black, vacant, dry
When the world is dimmest,
Splintering the human spirit,

Is it any wonder,
Neither tyrant nor trodden
Can see…
That latent in every long night
Is the hidden splendour of dawn’s light?!

Only,
And only,

If those who languidly tread
Between the corrupt and oppressed,
Awaken,
And rise,

To destroy
Global matrices of power and lies,
Only then,

Will the blackest night
Recoil and give way,

To an enduring,
Glorious, new day

Fatema Valji