MWA's Aishah Schwartz shares a few thoughts and a poem on the essence of Ramadan

The essence of Ramadan cannot be encapsulated into just one thing; it is, indeed, multifaceted.

For me Ramadan is full of mini-miracles.

Over the past few days I had allowed myself to be taken-in by sentiments of sadness that somehow this evening managed to seep out through my fingertips onto my keyboard -- the result being a small poem. And by the time the poem reached its end, suddenly the memory of someone near to me, who had much greater cause to feel sadness, sprung to my heart. It made me reach out to her, and it made me reach out to another person to whom I needed to express my gratitude.

Al-hamdulillah for Ramadan.

Al-hamdulillah for everything.

The Tear 
By Aishah Schwartz 

I was sitting here alone,
feeling the gentle glide of a tear...

push itself over
the rim of my eye.

Then I found myself sitting...
motionless...

absorbing how it felt slowly rolling down my cheek.

My head tilted left—

as I sat in a listless slouch—

the trail had no where to go,

but down the seam of my smile-less lips.

Reaching the end,
it tripped down the side of my chin,

to land on my shoulder—

where it was absorbed by the soft cotton fabric of my nightgown.

And I remembered you.

--

Aishah Schwartz, an American Muslim revert to Islam since April 2002, is founder and director of the 2006 established Washington, D.C.-based Muslimah Writers Alliance (MWA) and a retired 17-year career litigation legal assistant.
Ms. Schwartz is also a published freelance non-fiction writer and photo journalist whose aim is to counter misconceptions regarding the Islamic faith and members of the Muslim community.
As a woman traveling in the Middle East, Ms. Schwartz's role as a civil and human rights activist has focused on the rights of Muslim women and the plight of the Palestinian people affected by the Israeli imposed illegal embargo on Gaza. She has also been reporting on revolutions in the Middle East as a Demotix photo journalist since January 2011.